To Those Who Walk on Different Planes
by kings3476
Summary: In life, many walk in different circles, so why should that change in death? A new king with no kingdom will find a fight he never thought he'd join, and help fight a man who would be a god.
1. Chapter 1

To Those Who Walk on Different Planes

 **OK, first off, I'm not abandoning my other story, SAtR, I just have ha and Idea for a bleach crossover in the back of my mind forever and wanted to finally try my hand at it.**

 **Second, continuity, obviously PP never happened, I also had Danny get ghost powers at 12 instead of 14, to give him some experience while at the same time staying equal in age to Ichigo and the crew. The rest of the cannon is still intact, with maybe a few tweaks here and there to help make sense of things. Reign Storm happens at the end of the official cannon, as a sort of replacer for PP, and I decided to add Valerie to the mix because I'd like to develop her in this, and since PP doesn't happen, it was either do it in story, which I didn't want to do, or develop as the story progresses.**

 **Also, like in SAtR, intangibility doesn't cause the characters to go see through, again, that's a personal style choice on my part, sorry, I just don't like the effect that much, it seems pointless to me seeing as invisibility is not only a separate power, but can be activated in tandem with intangibility, so I never really say the point.**

 **As far as bleach cannon goes, I'm stretching the time between episode 10 and 11 by a few days, just to have a build up for Danny, so it's in-between Don Kanonji and Uryu, just think of it as an extra character arc before the rescue mission arc, like Chad's or Orihime's.**

 **(~)**

" _I finally get it_ …" He said, voice echoing richly with another worldly quality in the quite room " _Pariah didn't go crazy with power, it was boredom_."

Daniel James Fenton gave a one more bored sigh as he tapped the armchair of his throne. The new king sat on the throne of his keep, looking as if he wanted to be anywhere but sitting there. But then again, things rarely went as he intended, just look at him now.

The young ghost king sat in the spoils of his victory over Pariah Dark, in the keep of the king, but looking very different then when owned by its previous tenant. The foreboding red stone had become a black, metallic surface that would give an impressive shine, if not for the predominantly dark coloring of the realms sky. The Fortresses previous design, that of several structures haphazardly merged together, changed into a central tower like building, looking more like a citadel than a castle. It's ethereal green glow persists, but was augmented by swirling waves of ice blue which produced a chill that would freeze intruders to the bone. The little island the keep rested on had expanded, with a large forest of pitch black wood pine surrounding the keep.

The interior of the structure had changed as well, gone where the murals of carnage and brutal weaponry adorning the walls, now the keep had furniture and trappings that held the feel of an icy Nordic hall. Horns and furs of massive beasts adorned the walls and floor, furred rugs and furred banners, each adorned with his white DP symbol. Seating laid interspersed in the halls and rooms, adorned different decorations of strange, almost Celtic design, and many rooms holding massive grand fireplaces alight with large, eternal green flames. As cozy an image these trappings created, the keep was not without its own defenses, the animal furs and taxidermy were in fact a trap. An artificial creation of the keep that if invaded, would cause these simple decorations to come alive into a host of powerful and deadly creatures that would destroy an intruder, unless commanded otherwise.

And within the top floor of this looing fortress was the phantom king himself, sitting in the throne room. It hadn't changed to much of its structure from the previous king, the room was still vast, with the ceiling almost not visible to the normal human eye. The walls were themselves adorned with a menagerie of furs and trinkets, many gifted to Danny by his allies, Pandora, Dora, and Frostbite, to help him in his new "regime." On the floor was a long, beautifully designed black fur rug the lead from the very far entrance, across the room, and up the stairs to the elevated throne of the king. Before, this raised platform housed the sarcophagus of forever sleep, but Danny's fight with Pariah had … rendered the coffin pointless; he still kept it though, locked deep in the keeps vaults, just in case Vlad ever gave him a good enough reason to reuse it.

In its place was Danny's throne, made from the same black metal of his keep, fused into the floor, covered in glowing green runes, and with intricate sculptures of wolves serving as the chairs armrests, each holding a metal plate in their mouths with his ever famous DP symbol. The black rug of the floor covered and merged with the foot of the throne, continuing up the chair and becoming the seats cushion. From there, the black fabric continued up the back of the chair, which was a towering black metal spire, which as it ascended, blead into a massive pillar of cascading energies of black, green, blue and white, atop the spire was the DP made in white flames. Placed aside the throne were large, cage like braziers that held an erupting, Black and green "Fel" Flame, which would react to his emotions, which given his current state of boredom, meant the flames were fairly small at the moment, at least in comparison to their container.

Danny sat on the throne, leaning back with one hand on his armrest, the other holding his chin. The hybrid had changed drastically since adorning the crown. He wore a long imperial robe, its whole surface covered in glowing blue orb and celestial symbols, like an animated sky chart, and was trimmed in glowing gilded neon green. The robe came down just around his ankles, the lower section of which was open to reveal his legs, and was split into two sections down the back. The collar of the robe was large and hugged his neck, its folded lapels trimmed white, green, and icy blue fur. The robe was set in place by a fur trimmed, rune inscribed, metal belt, with a wolf face buckle in the middle, on its forehead was a glowing green engraving of his DP symbol.

On his right shoulder was a padded leather, fur trimmed shoulder pad, with a metal wolf face perched in the middle, covering most his shoulder, and engraved on the wolfs forehead was his DP in glowing green. On his left was a black cloth shoulder cape that reached just above his knee, fully covering his left side and kept in place by a decorative, fur trimmed black leather shoulder pad. The cape itself, was adorned with similar moving orbs of celestial light, trimmed in the same gilded neon green, and lined in a pure white. But in the middle was a large, connected constellation forming an intricate design of a large wolfs head, with a glowing pure white DP in the middle

On his hands were black leather gloves reaching more than half way up his forearm, covered in large, white metal plates, with large, claw like ends on his fingertips. On his feet, ha had similar Black leather boots, equally cover in white metal plating and reaching just below his knees. He wore lose black pants, that, combined with his primarily white boots and the pitch black inner lining of his rob, gave the illusion that he feet were separate from his body.

Around his neck, secured around his collar was a black metal brooch that held a dark green gem that looked like a reptilian eye. It was a gift from Dora, her brother's old medallion, with a little bit of training from Dora herself, Danny was able to incorporate its power and could transform just as easily as the siblings, albeit with a very different form from the two.

The physical appearance of his ghost form, much like his outfit, had changed as well. His boy had gained a foot and a half, gaining a few inches on jazz, even in human form, and while his muscles were more defined, his arms, legs and chest were still as thin as ever. His skin had turned a few shades darker than before, with intricate marks of glowing black and green tattoos all over his skin. His ears had elongated, becoming almost elf like, much to his dismay, and his teeth had sharpened into points and turned perpetually pure white, the inner lining of his mouth glowing a neon green. His face became angular and thin, his eyes and brow shaping in such a way as to give him the look of almost perpetually intense anger, even if he was happy as can be, or in this case, board out of his mind. His eyes had changed, the sclera of his eyes turned pitch black, and his irises had no pupils, becoming glowing Neon green. Over all, these new changes gave him a rather creepy face, with his friend tucker once saying,

"dude, I swear, smiling with that face looks down right evil. It's like every time you smile with that face, a puppy dies." Of course, that prompted retribution, which Danny earned by getting Dash to stuff Tucker into a locker, again. He would have done some bigger prank, but then Sam said she liked his new look … and well, who was he to argue with that. Along with his Face, his voice had changed, where before there was a small reverberation in his voice, his voice now had a clear, ethereal effect to it, sounding as if two or more of him spoke at the same time, one just being just a fraction of a second out of sync.

His hair had also changed, becoming naturally longer, to the point that he had to tie it back with a black cloth into a foot-long ponytail down his back. It now also glowed a fait white and flowed and ebbed, like a liquid flame or plasma. Adorned on his head was the crown of fire, which like his outfit, had changed with him.

Gone was the floating crown fire of Pariah, now it was a looping coronet of black stephanite, infused with the skin of his forehead. Around the metal where gems of glowing blue ice imbedded to small metal protrusions going upward, fading into white, black and green flames at the tips. The ring of rage had also changed, its face changing into that of a silver wolf face embedded with his DP; but Danny didn't were the ring, he had already had enough power flowing through him with the crown stuck to his forehead. Instead he phased the ring into his person, which he found out was a great way to store important items, such as the skeleton key, or even exchange items with his duplicates, as they were one person and linked to whatever space this phasing reached into.

He gave another bored sigh as he looked at the image before him; using his new found abilities and with his training from clockwork, Danny had learned how to create a spectral window from his Fel energy to view the human world. Looking like a large natural portal, but with camera like view of what he wished to vsee instead of the usual swirling vortex of green and black, and in this view screen was Sam, Tucker, and Valerie, all sitting in Lancer's class, taking notes, without him.

For three years, Danny had been a Halfa, working hard to keep his home town safe from any ghosts or anything else that might threaten it, even things he never knew existed. He had admittedly freaked out when he first saw the pluses, the lost souls of the dearly departed, doubly so when Sam and Tucker couldn't see a thing. But soon after, with experience and a few allies confirming their existence, they had learned just to cope with their existence. Sam herself, after the run in with Undergrowth, had developed the spiritual ability to control plants, and while Tucker never really had the amplitude to gain his own abilities, he did gain enough exposure to at least see them. It was only later, after Danny had begun training under clockwork and frostbite, did Danny even see a hollow. They normally never entered the city, along with the soul reapers, Amity being a hot spot for the zone long before people arrived. The chaos of the constant ghost attacks however, drew the dumber hollows to try and feed. By that time, Danny had more than enough training to know what they were and how to deal with them, Clockwork even taught Danny a spell that sent the pluses to the soul society. It was a good thing the soul reapers rarely looked into where purified souls came from, he'd rather not try and guess what they'd do if they discovered a hybrid.

But everything changed a year and a half ago, When Vlad idiotically tried to usurp Pariah from his throne and came crawling to Danny and friends for help. The battle was fierce, the fright night and Pariah's endless army of thralls were overwhelming. In desperation, Danny turned to Valerie, who had seemed mellowed out after the affair with Danielle, and revealed the truth to her, but given the giant clue of Danielle being a halfa, she had pretty much already figured out the truth. Things were understandably … awkward after that, but they had far more import problems at the time.

Even with as much aid as he could muster from both realms, the battle was intense, coming down to a one on one between Pariah and himself. In the end, Danny struck Pariah down, and with the source of the endless thralls gone, the army vanished. A cry of victory sounded after he dealt the final blow, but soon after was silenced from a blinding glow emanating from the fallen king's crown and ring, and soon after, Danny collapsed. He awoke in his new ghost form, in the master bedroom of his newly shifted keep, with Clockwork who had brought Sam, Valerie, Tucker and Jazz in right at the moment he awakened.

As Clockwork explained, the power of Pariah, the crown and ring, need a vessel to inhabit, their form and power subservient to that vessel, until such time that a new one is needed. So, as long as their vessel lives, the Crown and ring, even if separated, cannot change hands without the fall of the previous owner, in which case, ownership transfers by the traditional means in the ghost zone, the victor gets the spoils and automatically becomes the newest vessel. As angry as this made Danny, considering how this meant Vlad's plan was essentially pointless, he had enough of his wits to ask clockwork his most pressing question,

" _What does being the vessel mean for me?_ " Clockwork's response shocked him.

"Nothing,"

As clockwork explained, Pariah never really had any claim to power in the ghost zone, he had no royal ties to any kingdom nor was the legitimate owner to any land outside his keep, just that his power was great enough that practically nothing could stop him. His "kingdom" consisted of a mindless thrall army of his creation, and all those that avoid destruction by serving him. Even his "most Loyal" knight, the Fright knight, apparently only served Pariah to save his own hide, given that he disappeared right after Pariah's fall. Even before during that embarrassing Halloween incident, he clearly was in no rush to wake his old master.

So While Danny held Pariah's power, He held no real responsibility with it; technically he held some political power as a lord of the land around the keep, but seeing as the keep was self-sustaining and no one was vying to live near Pariah's land, it wasn't like he was vital political leader. So he had no reason to stay in the keep at all, he could just go about his business and never touch the keep again.

But here he was, sitting on the throne, bored out of his mind, the reason being to keep his town safe, or at least, that was why at first.

Soon after gaining the throne, Danny trained under clockwork to learn the full extent of his new power, and it was from clockwork that he learned about barriers. With his new found strength, Danny constructed a subspace barrier between the ghost zone and the human world, to better keep the ghosts of the zone away from the humans, or more specifically, to keep them from swarming his home town. It wasn't perfect, and some of the clever or lucky ones could find a passage out, but even if they could slip through the barrier, they were hard pressed to stop Danny from sensing when they did. With the barrier in place, ghost attacks dropped to almost none existent. There was a catch, in order to sustain the barrier, Danny had to slightly empower it from time to time, meaning he had to spend long intervals in the zone. He couldn't just abandon his human life however, so he created a duplicate, one with just barely more than the average spiritual power than the average human, costing him practically no effort or strain to maintain the copy, and sent it to the human world. As his duplicates are essentially just extensions of his own consciousness, he could still experience a normal human life while still maintaining the peace between the realms, and if any of his friends or family were in danger, he could easily swap places with his doppelganger and help.

It took some time to get used to it, but seeing as the duplicate was still fully Danny, his friends and Jazz again learned to cope. Sam herself was actually fascinated by it, comparing it to the Hindu concept of an avatar, a deity who sends a physical incarnation to the mortal realm, but Danny wasn't too keen on the Idea. He had already had enough problems with crackpots thinking themselves as gods amongst men, he didn't want to join the club.

Of course this method did come with some perks, in-between classes, he could send his homework to the current him in the keep and with a few more duplicates could finish his homework earlier. Then there was the less productive upside, a chance to play video games and watch YouTube video's for as long as he wanted, literally as long, since this new form had the added benefit of not having to sleep. His duplicate still went to bed, the comfort was nice and he needed to fool his parents, as his mom had a gained an annoying habit of making sure he was in bed. Which to be fair, she gained when she discovered him out if it; not his fault Skulker loved his late night hunts. Honestly, this system become so useful that when the barrier had stabilized to the point of needing very little oversight from Danny, he still kept a copy in both worlds. It just became another facet of his life, just another part of the day, like his new growing pass time, training.

" _Now there's an idea,_ "

Danny sat up and lifted his right hand to his chest, plunging his hand into his heart. It only took half a second for him to find what he was looking for, and quickly pulled out a blade. The blade was a medieval style long sword, 40 in. long blade, 10 in. long hilt and 2 in. in width. The guard was an 8 in. broad fuller made of pure white metal with a glowing blue Ice crystal imbedded in the middle. The hilt was made of black metal, wrapped in white cloth that was covered in black runic text. Below, at the end of the hilt was a white metal spade with a glowing green and black crystal within. The blade itself held a ling groove on both sides, and was covered in three lines of runic text on both sides. One line, near one of the blades edges glowed green and black, The other edge glowed and icy-blue, with the middle line of text glowing pure white.

This was Danny's blade, _Rex Rapaces_ , formed from his training with clockwork, who taught him how to use reriyoku, or spiritual power, and what it meant to both him and ghosts. Ectoplasm was a unique substance, holding a measure of reshi and mundane living world elements, a sort of mixture of spirit particles and atoms. Normally these don't mix well, and indeed, ectoplasm was known to be very chaotic by nature, just look at the ghost zone, but there is always an exemption in nature, and ectoplasm was just that. Because of this merged existence, ectoplasm had several unique properties, making it possible to be seen by both normal humans and beings made of reshi, but could allow those who controlled it to slip out of sight and physical contact with any of the other two, be it hollows humans or even soul reapers. Also, because of its strange middle ground existence, ectoplasm could be sensed by reshi beings, but gave very low or obscure readings, making it appear much weaker than it actually was.

In regards to Danny's reiatsu, it had developed in similar nature to that of a soul reaper, albeit greatly altered. Much of his powers and abilities, while structured around his ghostly nature, had many qualities akin to that of a soul reaper, including what you might call a halfa zanpakuto and a plethora of soul reaper like techniques, from Hoho, Zanjutsu, Hakudo, to his own unique brand of Kido. There were, however, several differences, one great example was while his Zanpakuto had a name, it didn't have a spirit or personality as soul reaper zanpakuto have. He had an inner world, as any soul does, and the sword had the standard release forms, but there was no separate personality held within the blade. According to Clockwork, the blades spirit is formed when the soul in question becomes aware of the blade and it is split from the soul, but Danny's change into a halfa changed that, causing whatever spirit that could have been formed to remerge with his soul, forming the physical aspect of his ghost half. So in essence, Danny was his own blade's spirit, which was a dizzying concept to understand even now. The fact that he'd never develop a separate spirt for his sword felt a tad lonely, but then again that meant there wasn't another person in his head to watch everything he did, so there was an upside.

After looking at the blade for a second, Danny decided against training, he had already had a morning session with Pandora, and if she caught wind, or more likely sensed, that he was willing to do more training, there wouldn't be much left of him. while he loved the Greek goddess like an aunt, her more "Spartan" style training was something no amount of boredom could justify. So reluctantly he brought the sword to his chest and drove the blade back into his heart, then turned back to the view screen of his class as they lifelessly taking notes from Lancer's monotone droll on Shakespeare, and for once in his life, actually wish he was there, which by all rights he should be. But no, he couldn't be in class today, seeing as Danny Fenton no longer attended Casper high anymore, and the reason Danny Fenton couldn't attend Casper High was because the Fenton's no longer lived in Amity park anymore, all because of Danny.

In hindsight, He should have guessed this would happen, with his barrier restricting the ghosts, there was no need for ghost hunters in Amity. Faced with that, his parents decided to move to where their "skills" and abilities could be of most use, a Japanese town by the name Karakura town. Which apparently was the top contender with Amity of being the most haunted town in the world, or at least it was now given Amity's lack of ghost attacks. So, after a few days to get their things in order and settling both his and Jazz's transfers to the local high school, the Fenton's speeded their way to Japan.

Given that, Danny closed his eyes and focused on his human duplicate, who was currently with his family on their way across the pacific. The Fenton's never traveled by plane, mainly because his mom and dad were listed on the nations no fly list, given their instance to always carry ecto-weaponry on their person 24/7. Instead, the Family was loaded up on the Family ops-center as it was currently in jet form, speeding to their destination, much of their luggage stored behind them in small, spatial compression devices his mom and dad developed from reverse engineering the Fenton crammer. At the helm, his mother was currently flying, his father acting as navigator as the two adamantly talked on what kind of ghosts Japan could offer as he and his sister Jazz sat in the seats behind them.

Jazz, currently 17, was wearing her usual long sleeved black blouse and teal slacks, reading from a compressive guide to Japanese; she had already studied the language to be as proficient with it as possible, but that never stopped her from improving before. Danny himself had worked hard to get the langue down, it was amazing how much you can learn when you dedicate a small army of yourself to the task. To her left sat Danny, 15, and to anyone but his sister, sleeping as if dead to the world. He was wearing loose blue jeans, with a brown cloth belt, and his usually red and white sneakers, just a few sizes bigger than before. He was wearing an inverse of his usual shirt, red with a white oval and a white zipper hoodie. His human form had changed somewhat with his ghost, but not enough to raise suspicion from his parents. His hair was as long as it was in ghost form, this time bound by white cloth as his bangs had grown past his forehead and would cover his eyes. His human face did gain much of the structural changes of his ghost form, only far less intense, giving him a look of perpetual brooding despite whatever mood he was in.

Jazz had lowered her book at looked to her brother as she heard him stir, eventually opening his eyes and "waking up." Their mother to herd him move and tilted her head back to look at him,

"Morning sweetie! Did you have a good rest?"

Danny gave a fake yawn and replied "eh, I've had better."

His mother gave a good natured chuckle as she returned to her discussion with his father, becoming deft to anything that didn't involve their decision and piloting. Jazz on the other hand rolled her eyes at his poor attempts at humor,

"so original, what actually brings you back to the mortal world?"

Danny gave a quick snort as he turned to his sister, "can't a guy just enjoy the company of his family?"

A raised eyebrow and an incredulous look was his answer, "ok to be honest, I'm bored out of my mind, I've already done my morning training, played every game I wanted to, I even went over the entrance exam to correct my mistakes."

They had both had to take the high school's entrance exam to qualify for transfer, needless to say Jazz passed with flying colors. As for Danny, ever since gaining so much free time and with an army of himself to help study, his grades for the past year had skyrocket back up from the pit they dropped when he was first starting out. He certainly didn't break any records, but he had improved enough to pass the exam, and finally stop worrying his parents, which was a great load of his back. Even still, to be bored enough to go something so Jazz like was just confirmed his ever increasing boredom crisis.

He sat back, giving a loud bored sigh as he tried to regain a comfy purchase on his seat. His sister however frowned,

"Danny, you're not bored, if you were bored, you would have rather taken that extra training with Pandora over doing any studying." Her eyes narrowed but "Not that you shouldn't have done your studying."

A weak chuckle escaped his lips as he brought his right hand to the back of his neck, but Jazz's firm look morphed into one of concern "It's not boredom Danny, I've seen this in you before, your restless, somethings bothering you, I can tell."

Danny dropped his hand with another sigh, leave it to Jazz to know him better than he did. He turned to the outside window, the sun had just dawned over the horizon, and in just a few hours, they'd hit Karakura. Jazz spoke up, with a gentle leading voice,

"are you worried about Amity?"

Danny thought about it for a moment, but he knew his answer before she asked "No, not really,"

Amity's dangers were almost completely mundane now, now that the ghosts had disappeared from the public eye. There were still the hollows, But the lingering spectral imprint of the ghosts should keep the smarter thugs away. At best they'd get the simpler minded ones, but these guys were low level bugs most of the time, nothing Valerie, Sam and Tucker couldn't handle. Even if something big were to happen, he still could pop over to Amity whenever he wished, which he planned to do anyway to hang out with his friends now and then. Amity was in the clear for now, the really bad news wasn't Amity, but of their new home.

"it's not Amity that's trouble, it's Karakura."

A look of surprise flashed across Jazz's face before she released an almost soundless groan as she brought her hand to her face,

"please don't tell me mom and dad found ANOTHER town crawling with ghosts,"

Danny was tempted to say yes just to mess with her, but h decided against it "no, it's not ghosts that are the problem."

That got her attention as she brought her hand down and looked at him with a mixture of confusion and worry.

"I've been asking around the zone about the world's newest "most hunted town", and from what I've heard, the towns a jureichi, or important spirt ground" Danny leaded forward and rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands "Which means it's a veritable buffet for hollows."

Now that got a reaction from Jazz; like Tucker, she never really had the aptitude to developed her own abilities, but her exposure to higher levels of ghostly reiatsu gave her the ability to see reshi beings. Her first look at a hollow was of a low level centipede that blindly charged into town and honed in on her for her slight higher the average spiritual pressure. However, it didn't even get to touch her before Danny sliced it down the middle with one stroke, reshi beings were only subtle about their energy when they tried to hide, and Danny could small the beast coming a mile away.

The experience did leave Jazz a little shaken up, ghosts, especially the animal spirits could be vicious, but their neon glowing green and strange anatomy put them in a more inhuman level of creepy. Hollows on the other hand, screaming with their old human voices and bleeding of red blood had just enough qualities to hit rock bottom in the uncanny valley to seem slightly more unnerving. That and while ghosts could be dangerous, only the rare ghost was malevolent enough to actively try and kill or devour a person, the most others did was random destruction. But hollows, and some of the more disturbed spirits only moved to kill and eat people, which meant Danny had no choice but to end them. Jazz was a tough person, and wouldn't let the idea of hollows scare her too much, but that didn't mean she was all too comfortable entering a potential feeding frenzy.

"That does sound like trouble, but nothing we can't handle." She said, sending a small smile to reassure her brother. Danny however didn't acknowledge it, looking at his hands he bounced his arms on his knees.

"Danny?"

There was a pause in the air before he spoke up "we shouldn't worry too much about the hollows, the Fenton tech will shake them off the house, and a spiritual place like Karakura is sure to have an active soul reaper to keep the peace."

That last part was meant to be encouraging, but in truth, neither of them were too keen on letting soul society knowing about Danny, given what they heard about it. It was a big bureaucracy more concerned about their regulations then the people they affect, and they hadn't had the best track record with such shadowy organizations, the GiW being a chief example. Then there was the fact that apparently Pariah had enacted a bloody war some centuries back before his imprisonment, leaving the soul society a very sour note regarding ghosts. Still, they had never met a soul reaper, even after all the craziness of Amity, so as long as Danny was careful, he would most likely be regarded as a spiritually attuned human and be left alone. But as scary as the thought of being discovered was, that wasn't what was bothering him, the question was,

"Then what is it that has you so tense Danny?"

Danny looked up from his hands and leveled Jazz concerned frown "honestly? I don't have a clue, it's just …"

He leaned back in his seat and let out soft sigh, "We've seen things go crazy before, after a while you pick up on stuff, things you can't explain and just bug the crap out of your intuition."

He paused for a moment as Jazz twirled her chair and tilled her head to get a better look at his face "and right now, my intuition is screaming, Somethings going to happen in Karakura, I can just feel it."

Jazz just stared at his face for a second before shaking her head "Danny, this is the Fenton family luck we're talking about, of course somethings going to happen when we get there, I'd be more concerned if it was too quite."

So much of Danny wanted to dispute his sister pessimism of their family's good fortunes, but the truth was hard to argue with.

"You can't let this eat at you Danny, you don't have to answer to every problem, just try to keep calm and brace yourself to deal with whatever comes, you can't just sit there and pull your hair out in "boredom"." With that she lifted her Book back up,

"and you certainly won't keep me from learning the langue, not everyone can form think tanks on demand."

Danny gave a small amused snort before giving one last sigh and turning his head to sneak a peek at his father's instruments. From what he could see, they still had 1 or 2 hours left until they reached their destination. He turned his head to look at the growing day light, thoughts drifting as the Jet blasted its way to their new home.

(~)

"… ok I'll bite, what's the deal here? Did you call for back up or…"? He asked, angry scowl plastered on his face, looking at the absurdity before him.

"Waa … why the hell do you think I had anything to do with this?!" She yelled, fist raised to administer pain should what he says not please her.

"because you are the sole source of the weirdest shit in my life right now, so how could it be anyone but you?!" An angry standoff between the two ensued as they glared right at each other.

Ichigo Kurosaki had, for once, a very pleasant morning, having finally got a good night's rest after that crap with Don Kanonji a few nights back, no hollow attacks caused him to rush out the window, his father didn't even try to attack him out of the blue. It was so nice, and it freaked the crap out of him, there was no way his morning could be this peaceful, it was glaring sign for disaster to come. So with extreme trepidation, Ichigo dressed for the school day, peeking out his window to make sure his father wasn't trying something stupid like jumping through the window to wake him up and that's when he saw it. His father was outside alright, along with both his little sisters and much of the surrounding neighborhood, looking into the sky at a hovering metallic jet that was floating above the street, right in front of the empty house next to the Kurosaki clinic. The craft was massive, looking familiar enough for Ichigo to classify it a jet, while looking like no jet he'd ever seen before. And what the crap was on the side? it looked like some kind of company brand, but he couldn't remember a company that had a large capital F in a neon green flame.

He had no words, well except three,

"WHAT THE HELL?!"

His sudden outburst brought Rukia out from his closet dressed for school that day, and startled Kon awake, and now here they were in his room, glaring at each other. That was until Kon apparently had enough of the argument, hopping onto Ichigo's bed and shouting,

"Hey, lay off my Rukia, stupid!" Ichigo was about to bring down HIS fist on the little cretin till he pointed out the window "if you HAVEN'T noticed yet, everyone including your whole family is looking right at that thing, so it couldn't be from soul society!"

As much as Ichigo wanted to pound that little smug dish rag, he had conceded that the mod soul had a point, besides, he knew how this song and dance goes.

"Thank you Kon! You always stick up for me." Rukia gave the plushy a large warm smile, which prompted the little pervert to jump at Rukia's chest, and was swatted down with extreme prejudice. Honestly he wondered if Rukia did this on purpose, but then again, he really didn't care.

"so back to the topic at hand, to whatever the crap that thing is."

Both he and Rukia turned to the window, "I'll go check with my family, maybe they know something about this." Rukia nodded,

"I'll come with, if your family asks, I just say I stopped to look on my way to school."

Leaving Kon to writhe on the floor, they exited the house and walked up to Ichigo's family, his father holding his chin in what looked like over exaggerated confusion. His sister Yuzu Had a look of starry eyed amazement as she moved about taking pictures of the strange floating craft. And his other sister Karin had a look of annoyed confusion that belong squarely on Ichigo's face, sparking a small, unspoken and ignored note of pride within him. He approached his Family, with Rukia in tow, as they were apparently to busy gawking to notice her leave from their own house.

"SO, anyone know what's up with UFO above us?" He asked, giving the word UFO as much of a sarcastic influence as he could. The three of them turned to him, a look of recognition passes through them as they looked Rukia's way, but apparently the craft above them was more important than heckling him, the only positive thing about this weird jet so far.

"Good morning Ichigo and Ichigo's friend," Yuzu greeted them, lowering her camera and giving a warm smile, but instead of Yuzu, Ichigo's question was answered by Karin,

"not a clue, according to the noisy neighbor great vine gathered here, some weird family in America bought the house a few days ago, but I didn't hear anything about them having hovercrafts."

"Isn't great though!" his father boisterously declared, "now our little neighborhood has chance to become more culturally aware! A chance to learn from our strange new space age and or alien friends! Take this as a great learning experience my children!"

Ichigo couldn't suppress his look of incredulous embarrassment even if he wanted to, Seriously, did the old man always have to declare his insanity to the world every chance he got?

Before Ichigo could respond, the noise of a suction of air caught their attention. The bottom panel of the craft had pressed inward, then quickly spilt in half and retracted into the craft, creation an open hole on the belly of the ship. From said hole descended a railed rectangular platform, connected to the craft itself by hydraulically extending rods on all four corners of the platform. On the platform, descending right in front of his family, were two of the strangest people Ichigo had ever seen, and considering the crap Don Kanonji put him through, that's saying a lot.

First was the man, who Ichigo assumed to be the father in this strange foreign family, who was massive, not just in girth but in height, easily a foot and a half taller than his own father, and wearing what looked like some kind of SYFI bright orange jump suit and had a giant grin on his face. Next was most likely the mother, looking quite young next to her bear of a husband, wearing light make-up and an equally strange outfit, only teal. Next to the strange couple were what appeared to be their children, a smart looking girl with bright orange hair that looked to be a few years older the Ichigo, and next to her a rather emo looking dark haired boy, that seemed Ichigo's age, and only an inch or two taller.

Both their attire was thankfully far more normal, but as Ichigo looked at the two, something pricked at the back of his mind, not unlike the feeling he got with that soul reaper guy or a hollow. It didn't last long, but something just didn't feel right, when he looked closer at the girl, he barely felt anything, just a simple little spark in his senses, and she didn't seem to notice his concentration, only sifting from side to side in slight discomfort. The guy next to her was something else entirely, Ichigo didn't feel much from him, but what he did feel was … unnerving. With the other soul reaper and hollows, Ichigo felt a strange pressure on his shoulders, like something was trying to weigh him down. But with this guy, he felt no such weight, instead he felt … cold, like a hidden chill raced up his spine and scattered his nerves, like a cold spark ran through his nerves. That alone was unsettling, but as he looked at the guy's face, Ichigo realized the guy was staring right at him, wide eyed. Ichigo tensed as he looked right at the guy, whose look suddenly shifted to right beside him, where Rukia stood, before suddenly looking away, apparently determined not focus on them.

Ichigo looked back to Rukia, and saw she was looking wide eyed right at the guy, a little sweat building on her brow, as the family descended, her whole attention was focused on the dark haired kid. The loud voice of the bear man brought him back to the family,

" **Here we are family, our new home!"**

The man yelled in English, in a clearly American accent, before his wife spoke up as well, opening the gate of the metal railing to let the family out,

" **Honey, you might want to activate your translator, it looks like our neighbors are here to great us."**

The giant gave a smack of his forehead before tapping the collar of his strange suit, causing it to glow green, and spoke again spoke again. But this time, to Ichigo's shock, while the lip movements were clearly spoken English, no English left his mouth, instead a metallic, Japanese version of the man's speech came out just a microsecond after he moved his lips.

"Thanks Maddie, almost forgot!"

The family had fully exited their platform, and much to Ichigo's horror, began walking towards his, the couple both bearing large welcoming grins as the Father once again spoke,

"Hello new neighbors! So good to finally get to the new homestead after that long flight!"

Even in translated Japanese, the man's loud voice came in clear and boisterous; Ichigo's own father came up to greet them with an equally large smile and even louder voice, as if he took this man's natural booming voice as a challenge.

"Great to Have you! My names Isshin Kurosaki, these two lovely angels right here are my daughters, Yuzu and Karin!" introducing his daughters, he placed a hand on both the heads with the largest grin on his face.

Yuzu gave a little giggle and responded with a bubbly "nice to meet you,"

Karin gave a bored sigh a just gave a quick "hi," but Ichigo caught her giving the dark haired kid a quick, nervous glance. Then, sounding as if sobering up, Ichigo's father gave simple smile and brought a hand to Ichigo's should,

"and this is my son Ichigo and a friend of his from school,"

Ichigo gave a quick wave and an uninterested "Yo," as Rukia introduced herself in her fake, bubbly attitude and happy smile "My names Rukia Kuchiki! It's great to meet you." Honestly, any more fake sugar in her speech and Ichigo was going to hurl, but he did notice her making a quick look at the emo kid, looking like she was expecting him to react to her name, no such luck as the kid didn't even flinch.

The mother of the American family spoke up, speaking in fluent, albeit accented Japanese "thank you all, it's great to meet you too, my name is Maddie Fenton, and this is my husband Jack,"

Both mother and father shared a quick handshake with Ichigo's dad, although it looked quite rough when the fathers shook, but then again it probably wasn't too fun to shake hands with a bear.

"over here we have you kids Jazmine and Daniel" The dark haired kid frowned just a bit before speaking up, his Japanese just as accented and just a little below his mother, but still fluent enough to fully understand,

"Just Danny please," he extended a hand to Ichigo and gave a small smile "nice to meet you, noticed you guys wearing the Karakura High uniform, you going there?"

Ichigo debated for a second, but weird feelings aside, the guy hadn't done anything wrong, so there was no reason to act like an ass, yet. He gave the hand a quick shake, it didn't have much strength but felt a little cold.

"yea, class 1-3, same as cavity girl here." That earned him a rather hard smack on the head from Rukia, but more notably a small snort and chuckle from the new kid, weird, didn't look like the kind of guy with a sense of humor. Recovering from his blow he asked,

"how'd you know the uniforms?"

The sister spoke up this time, in a polite, accented, but just as equally fluent Japanese as her mother, "Because we got our uniforms in the mail a few days ago, you can just call me Jazz by the way, I'll be in year three, Danny's in first year."

She too offered her hand to shake, and consider how little weird vibes were coming from her, Ichigo had very little to mentally debate over, and just like you would expect from a normal person, her hand shake was nice and warm. With everyone introduced, Ichigo's dad spoke up,

"with that out of the way, I do have to ask, what exactly did you come from, and do they all have hovercrafts?" What should have sounded like a joke question sounded like a confused inquire from his father, although with a bit cornier. Maddie Fenton answered,

"Oh just a little town in Illinois called Amity Park,"

Ichigo heard a gasp from Yuzu and turned from his watch emo looking kid, Danny, and saw as awed recognition passed through her face,

"Amity park?! As in the most haunted town in the world Amity park!?"

Of course, it only made sense some foreign spiritual weirdness arrived right at his doorstep, frankly, the only thing he was really shocked about was that Karakura didn't make the top of the list, it's got to be up there though. Ichigo's father spoke up next,

"oh yea, your town had its own segment on Don Kanonji's _Bura Tama_ , but last I heard, Amity lost the most haunted title to Karakura not to long ago, something about the ghosts flat out disappearing."

Well, would you look at that, the fact that his own made most haunted didn't really come as a chock to Ichigo, what really startled him is that the dumbass Kanonji's show actually had something useful in it. The bear of the Fenton's father respond,

"That's actually what brought us down here in the first place, with the ghost scared of in Amity, we needed somewhere to keep up our work!"

Work? Now that Ichigo thought about it, it was defiantly a giant, blaring red flag of trouble if these people had a feature story on that idiot's show, he looked back at the Fenton siblings, both looking more and more embarrassed the more they talked about how haunted their old town was. He looked away again as he heard his father give a cry of retaliation,

"ah ha, I thought I recognized your name, you're that family of spectral scientist and hunters based in Amity, although I guess that's changed to here now hasn't it? From what I heard, your supposed to be the best in your field."

It took every ounce of his self-restraint not to face-palm, couldn't he go with one week without dealing with crap like this? On a positive note, they shouldn't get too much in the way, from what he could guess, these two were ordinary humans. But then again, both he and Rukia had underestimated Don Kanonji's spiritual insight, and that almost ended in disaster, then there were the couple's kids to worry about.

Speaking of which, the older sister spoke up, clearly wanting to end this conversation, "well, it's been great, but we should really get unpacked."

The giant man turned to his daughter and gave her a pat on the back, which almost knocked the poor girl over, "right you are Jazzy- pant!" Oh, now that was funny, for the first time Ichigo dropped his intense stair and gave a small chuckle at the nickname, shared by the girl's brother, who got a quick swat on the back of the head from his red faced sister.

Meanwhile, the orange clad giant had dug up a strange, smartphone like device from one of his many pockets, and after few quick taps, the lowered platform began rise back up into the craft as the whole thing began to transform. Quickly, while floating in midair, the craft changed into a strange disk like object, glowing radio disks and antennae springing out from all sides. The craft then floated over to the Fenton's new home as strange metal appendages began descending into the roof of the building as the strange, alien device began grafting itself into the once innocent home. Soon, the strange metal monstrosity settled on its new perch when suddenly, a hatch opened from the bottom of the large disk, and down floated a strange neon sign, flashing the name Fenton and the kanji for works next to it, that latched itself besides home's entrance.

Ichigo stood there stunned, it was like watching something from a bad alien invasion movie, out of the weird crap he'd seen taking this stupid substitute job, this was by for the weirdest, and he wasn't even on the clock. The rest of his Family stood mouths agape, but had no time to respond before Jack Fenton turned to them,

"well, it's been great talking, but we really should get things ready, Danno and Jazzy here have school tomorrow, and me and Maddie have to start getting the lab up and running!"

So with that insanity, and with the looks of utter humiliation from both the Fenton siblings, the father led his family to their new home. Frankly Ichigo didn't know whether to be glad that it was over, or lament the metric ton of crazy that just blew in. still, nothing to do about it now, so he just gave a long suffering sigh and bid his family farewell as he and Rukia left or school. Once they were out of ear shot of his family, Rukia donned her usual serious tone,

"so, Ichigo, what did you make of that?" he stopped in his tracks and looked back to the serious faced Rukia, his face barely changing from his usual frown,

"honestly? I thought my family was as weird as it got, but I think I just found the bench mark," he clicked his tongue, not so much to being derogatory to the Fenton's, weird though they were, they weren't all that bad, at the very least they were polite.

"as for this whole ghost hunting business? Well not sure how much sock I put into that until I see it. Unless they start messing with the pluses, there's not much we can do besides keeping an eye on them,"

His eyes narrowed as he remembered the weird vibe from that emo looking guy, "especially that Danny kid."

He was about to continue walking until Rukia dropped a bomb on him,

"I'd put a lot more on the ghost hunting if I were you, from what I could tell, they have at least some degree of experience with the real thing."

He stopped dead, and turned to face her with a look of genuine surprise, "wait, you mean they can see spirits, I thought they were regular humans, they looked regular …" and image of the couple's flashy outfits shot through his head, "…. at least in the sense that they felt like they couldn't actually see this crap."

Rukia shook her head, "no, they were defiantly normal humans, that I'm certain of. More than likely, they were talking about actual ghosts."

Ichigo blinked, what does she mean actual ghosts? Rukia looked at his face and said,

"that's right, I never really taught you the difference, seeing as it didn't have a lot to do with your duties as a soul reaper."

Without warning, Rukia pulled out here sketch pad, while Ichigo prepped himself to receive the useful info with the crappy drawings.

"all spiritual beings, like pluses, hollows, and soul reapers are made of reshi or spirit particles, because of this, most beings made of human world atoms can't see these beings unless they have a high enough level of spiritual pressure."

The discussion was informative, it really was, But Ichigo had to wonder why she had to draw the human world atoms like crappy looking ducks and the reshi like crappy looking rabbits. She flipped the page and began hastily drawing the rest of her examples while continuing her speech,

"normally these two forms of matter don't mix well, but in large dimensional pockets between the human world and spirit world, they mix and find homeostasis, becoming what is called ectoplasm."

She flipped to show one side of the paper having group of the stupid looking ducks and rabbits mixing with a large x crossing them out. On the other was a group of both the stupid looking animals in some kind of mock addition equation, with a result of what he would imagine ectoplasm looked like, then again, it's hard to mess up drawing green goop.

"follow me so far?"

"yea, despite how crappily drawn your examples are."

That got him what he expected, the sketchbook thrown at his face, but what can he say, he was an honest man. Rukia continued on despite her obvious anger,

"anyway! Ectoplasm has a unique property, it can receive the thoughts and wills of living humans through a connection between their natural spiritual pressure and its own natural reshi, shaping and molding based on whatever signals it receives. The beings created from this molding are ghosts."

Recovering from his blow while still hearing her whole explanation, Ichigo gave Rukia a completely serious look,

"Are they a threat? Do they eat human souls like hollows?"

Rukia was silent for a second,

"not really, most are just harmless, preferring to stay they're home world, there is occasionally some trouble makers, but usually their hardly a threat. There are some that do attack humans, living or dead, and even their fellow ghosts, but these are highly rare and are among the most malevolent of their type."

She gave a short pause, looking down for a second in contemplation,

"in truth, soul society doesn't have much information on ghosts, we do know that they have strange abilities shared amongst them. Flight being one, along with the ability to phase through anything, they can even go invisible, even to reshi beings like soul reapers and hollows. And because of the strange mixture of reshi and regular atoms, ectoplasm can be difficult to detect, making them hard to see coming."

Ichigo's brows jumped in surprise, hollows where tough enough to keep down, he'd hate to fight something he couldn't see or touch. Rukia lifted her head as she continued,

"the real problem is that many have their own unique abilities pertaining to the thoughts and conceptions that formed them. Some can be downright silly like a spirit of roads or newspaper or boxes."

That broke the tension, Ichigo raised one incredulous eyebrow "boxes? Really?"

She just gave a quick one shouldered shrug "eh, I was just listing of ridiculous things from the top of my head, the point is it could be anything."

Fair enough to him, Ichigo gave a little shrug before Rukia regained her focused attitude,

"and the more powerful the concept, the more powerful the ghost, like elemental spirits that can level a town in a furious rampage, or some beings formed from ancient religions of powerful gods."

Rukia's eyes narrowed as she looked Ichigo dead in the eye,

"there are even ghosts that have more power than some of the most powerful soul reapers."

Now that brought a chill down Ichigo's spine, "seriously?"

Rukia gave a quick nod, "yea, the most powerful ghost soul society had ever seen was one known as the ghost king, Pariah Dark; centuries ago, he attacked and nearly brought the soul society to its knees."

Rukia walked over to a nearby wall and leaned against it, looking up as she continued, "according to the stories, Pariah was unstoppable, he tore through some the best defenses soul society had like paper, and lead an army of countless skeletal warriors to lay siege to the Seireitei, destroying anything in his path."

There was a pause in the air, and wanting to get to the point, Ichigo spoke,

"well, what happened next? Considering this happened centuries ago and we still have the soul society around, I'm guessing you guys found a way to beat him."

Rukia gave a deep sigh as she hung her head, not filling Ichigo with a lot of confidence, "that's just the thing, we didn't."

"What?!"

Rukia paused for a second, "Just before he delivered the final blow to soul society, Pariah Dark left, his army leaving with him, neither he nor his legion have been heard from since. From what little we could gather, there seemed to be a major revolt going on in the ghost's home dimension, but soul society has had no intel on whether Pariah won or not."

She lifted her head to look straight up across the street, "Many have speculated that since he's been gone for centuries, he was thrown out of power or killed, but in truth we don't know, it could be that he's still fighting that revolt, or it could be that he was badly injured and is just licking his wounds. It could even be that he was killed and his successor has yet to make a move."

She lifted herself from the wall and faced Ichigo, as she crossed her arms in front of her chest, "Soul society has recovered from the attack, there's little to no trace of Pariahs rampage left, and since the attack, soul society has gotten a lot more powerful, with higher regulations on key officers strength. But many still remember the horror that Pariah brought, there's countless stories of the atrocities he enacted. He may be gone, but there still the lingering fear that he'll come back to finish what he started."

There was a long silence as Ichigo digested her words,

"the good news is that while some can be tough, most ghosts avoid spiritually active locations like Karakura, so we shouldn't run into any."

That was good an all, but a question in this mess stuck Ichigo like a falling stone,

"wait, how do you know the Fenton's have any experience with actual ghosts?"

She blinked before a look of realization stuck her face "oh that's right, I guess we got a little off topic, well the first clue was the floating craft thing of theirs, while ectoplasm can be hard to detect, the thing was emitting high concentrations of it. My guess is that the Fenton's have learn to somehow harness ectoplasm in some way, pretty amazing now that I think about it, the heads in the department of research would roll if they heard about this."

It was a weird shift in tone, she was speaking so dramatically before about the ghost king, now she acted so flighty, it's like she reverted back of her fake school girl persona, and it left Ichigo feeling a little unnerved.

"More importantly," she said, her voice once again adopting her more serious tone, like a switch had ben flick on an off,

"Those two kids, while Jazz didn't have too much spiritual pressure, it was clear that she was at least spiritually aware, though given the families exposure to ectoplasm that isn't to surprising, I can only guess the parents aren't because of those protective suits they ware."

Her eyes narrowed as she looked to the side "The boy, Danny though, was different; it was hard to get a hold of his spiritual pressure, even though he could clear pick up on ours. And what little I could feel felt … off, it wasn't like usual spiritual pressure, it felt … "

"cold" Ichigo finished or her as she turned her head to him again and gave him a quick nod,

"to be honest, I've never felt anything like it, he didn't seem to suspicious, but we should keep an eye on him, just in case."

Ichigo gave his own nod before turning around, "well I guess that's all we can do, for now we better hurry up and get to class or we'll be late."

At that he started sprinting to school, with Rukia scrambling to pick up her tossed sketchbook at follow after him,

"wait up! I tossed my sketchbook!"

"Then do us both a favor and leave it!"

A re tossed sketchbook later, Ichigo was holding the back of his head

"Ow!"

(~)

 **I hoped you like the first chapter**

 **Like SAtR, I'm kind of making this as I go, I have a vague Idea of how I want this to play out, but I'm really just doing this to vent an idea. I kind of wish I could give you guys an illustration of my redesigns, but again, I'm a crappy artist, so I hope I conveyed the look adequately enough. Please read and review, I get a lot out of your comments, especially on something I've done wrong, it helps me to improve so please share, thx!**

 **Oh and the name of Danny's blade is in Latin, and I plane to make all his releases AND all his techniques in Latin, cuz toy know … dead language? … well it makes more sense than the hollows all using Spanish.**

 **rex rapaces- king wolves/ king of the wolves**


	2. Chapter 2: Cautious Steps

**I'll say this here because I forgot to in the last chapter, But I do not own either Danny Phantom or bleach**

 **Please enjoy!**

(~)

Chapter 2: Cautious Steps

"steel yourself phantom!"

The combined force of two short spears, a broad sword and large hail of icy blades rained down on Danny, he needed to act fast. Quickly, Danny gave a leap backwards into the air, conjuring three identical duplicates of his right sword arm to deflect the weapons as he brought up his glowing blue left hand, stopping and absorbing the ice heading his way. Dismissing his duplicate arms, Danny then formed a spiritual platform beneath himself for leverage, pivoted on his left foot to turn and with his still icy glowing hand, crated a small, vibrating ball of unstable frost energy and blasted his arms bearing opponent away. In the same motion, he charged the blade in his right arm, coating it in green and black Fel flames and gave a quick horizontal slash of his blade with the movement. The flames launched from the blade into a large Fel fireball and blasted his ranged opponent aside, stopping both assailants simultaneously. He finished his spin and turned to face his opponents, Pandora and Frostbite slowly rose from where they fell, a little more charred then previously, but not to worse for wear, both giving him approving nods as he removed his blindfold. To the side, Clockwork began to float towards them, shifting forms as he went, and with the same mixture of an analytical look mixed with an amused smirk.

It was Tuesday, that meant combined training for Danny, starting sharply at 5 am. and finishing around 11, which then would be followed by general studding with ghost writer, who had him study everything from ghost law and history, ancient techniques on scrolls, to even just helping him with his math homework. It was a little weird at first getting lessons from ghost writer, Danny wasn't necessarily sore about the who Christmas incident, mainly because it was kind of his fault, but he was afraid ghost writer held a grudge, what with him being sent to walker's prison. Apparently not, seeing as he was quickly released by the observant high council, seems it pays to the official scribe of the ghost zone. It also didn't hurt that Clockwork was the one who hired him, and Danny guessed that little recommendation was quite the feather in his profession cap, because ghost writer was determined to get through his usual teenage academic laziness. Well, regardless, he wouldn't say anything, and with how bad he is at math, he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

They were currently on a small empty outcropping of floating islands placed roughly in-between Danny's keep and all their respective homes; after all, it wouldn't do to destroy their homes or harm anyone in their kingdoms, the Far frozen still panicked whenever Danny went anywhere NEAR the training grounds. Danny was of course still in ghost form, seeing as his original body rarely left the zone, and was slowly gliding down to his instructors as they cleared any remaining soot from their persons. Despite the battle, and despite being on the receiving end of the fireball, neither Pandora or frostbite had any injuries; Ectoplasmic beings had high regeneration properties, Given Ectoplasms more exited state allowed for rapid physical repair and control. Danny himself held just such a high regeneration rate, and mixing that with a few healing Kido gave him the ability to increase the regeneration of physical trauma. Because of this, Danny too was free of injury, even though he had been nicked a few times by Pandora's blade or by a stray piece of Frostbite's ice.

Walking along with Clockwork was Dora, dressed in far less formal attire. She wore a long, dark blue cloak, embroidered on the back by her family's royal seal of a large golden dragon circling the image of a crown. She wore a white cloth tunic tucked into a pair of black cloth pants and a black leather belt, with black leather boots and gloves on her hands and feet. She still held her hair in a braid, but far more free, looking like a loose French braid, with her brother's old crown, her dragon eye amulet around her neck, and an embroidered black short sword latched on her belt. Her attitude had also greatly improved, becoming much more outspoken and self-confident, but it was clear in how she regarded Danny's other allies that she hadn't completely tossed aside her old mannerisms, as she kept a few feet behind Clockwork and her head tilted in a slight bow. Danny really couldn't blame her, Dora may have far more claim to leadership then him, but the authority and experience of his three other instructors far surpassed what power argon had granted her, if anything, she was just acting proper, despite his more relaxed behavior around the three. As she and clockwork came closer, Dora gave a large smile,

"amazing performance as always, lord Phantom."

It took a good deal of will power not to sigh at the name, when he met with her soon after the battle, Dora had begun addressing him as "majesty" which gave his friends a laugh. After talking with her, he got her to drop the "kingly" titles, but try as he might, he couldn't get her off of addressing him as lord, which he ultimately had to concede as it was technically his official title in the zone, and was at least superficially true. Besides, he could tell he wasn't going to talker down from there, he still couldn't get the Far Frozen not to call him "great one." He turned and gave her an appreciative smile,

"thanks Dora."

She returned the smile, as Clockwork spoke up "yes, well done young phantom, you've greatly improved on your ability to channel multiple energies…" the smirk on the time master grew as his ancient voice held a tone of amusement "it would have been a perfect match, if you weren't so greatly distracted."

Dora turned to the eldritch spirt and quirked her head in confusion, at the same time, Frostbite and Pandora came forward, both nodding in agreement in Clockworks assessment. Pandora spoke first,

"Master Clockwork is correct Daniel, you normally are much better in parrying my blades, there were even times you allowed yourself to be trapped by sir Frostbite's ice."

Her tone, while concerned, held just enough reproach to make him wince, no doubt she'd have something special planned for next week to remind him to pay attention, and the aggravatingly greater smirk on Clockworks face did nothing to reassure him. Frostbite spoke up,

"I've seen that look on your face before great one, when you expect great danger to befall you. Tell us, what has you so concerned?"

Danny turned to them all and gave a heavy sigh, "I'd swear that you've all been talking with Jazz if I didn't know any better."

We walked to a nearby purple stone on the bare outcropping and sat, facing all of them.

"you all know where my families moving to right?" a round of nods came from his company of allies, all except Clockwork, as confirming whither he knew or not was pointless.

"well, I expected some kind of soul reaper presence in the town, but I didn't expect two of them to be my next door neighbors."

Looks of confusion and concern circled the group, minus Clockwork, as they turned back to him, Dora asking the pertinent question,

"I'm sorry my lord, but what do you mean when you say they are your neighbors? do you mean they patrol near your new home?"

Danny turned his head to the dragon queen and shook his head, "no, I mean both this orange haired guy and black haired short girl have bodies and live in the house right next to mine, they even have a background with the people that lives there, or at least the guy does. I can sense the girl in the house, but she apparently is unrelated to the family."

Another look shared between them, this time with far more confusion than before. Dora spoke again

"and … you are sure that these 2 are soul reapers?"

To that question, Danny gave a small nod before speaking,

"defiantly, the girl seed pretty week right now, but I could catch a strong enough scent to know, and the guy? He lets out so much spiritual pressure that I'd have to be dumb not to notice."

Pandora quirked an eyebrow, "he blatantly projects his power? How foolish, does he not care of the fiends he could attract?"

Danny turned to the Greek goddess, "that's the thing, I don't think he does know, his spiritual pressure felt way too unrefined, my guess he's a rookie," Danny turned his head down in thought before he shifted his gaze between the group, a concerned frown on his face,

"the problem is that while he has the distinct feel and smell of a newbie, the raw power he has is unreal, with the right training he'd be a tough opponent, not unbeatable but certainly not someone I'd like to cross."

The faces of his allies mirrored his concern as he stood up, walking a few feet to look out into the black void of the zone. As the seconds of silence passed, Danny brought his hand up, and with a mixture of Fel fire, white flame and icy blue sparks made a miniature model galaxy in his hand. It was a simple little trick, something to help practice his powers and something to do with his hands when he felt like thinking. As the miniature galaxy swirled in his hand, he thought about his coming day, his human duplicate was still bed, pretending to sleep; in just a few hours both he and Jazz would be leaving for their first day at Karakura high. It was bad enough to start in a new school, but to start it off with two soul reapers in the same school made him a little jumpy. Sure, Ichigo and Rukia seemed nice, and it wasn't a given that they'd be hostile if they knew what he was, but Danny had the worst luck in regards to first impressions, and such terrible luck taught him to never gamble on uncertainties if they could be avoided. His worried thoughts were broken by clockwork, whose tone had shifted to a more serious air, though his voice held enough amusement that Danny knew he still had his all-knowing smirk.

"It's not wise, nor healthy little phantom, to assume that every passer by holds hidden blades."

Danny snorted, not the best metaphor when the people in question actually do have unseen blades, clockwork must be messing with him,

"In a way I am, but you know I did not mean physical blades, although one of the two may surprise you,"

The galaxy in his hand disappeared as Danny turned with an annoyed frown on his face, he hated when Clockwork answered his thoughts, which is why the time master seemed to do it so frequently. He sighed as he looked at the elder spirit,

"Mentally healthy no, but I've learned a little paranoia can go a long way in keeping you alive …. Half alive …. Spirit bou- you know what I mean!"

A chuckle was his response, before the face of his ancient mentor took on a more reprimanding look,

"yes I do, but that doesn't mean your right young lord," He raised his staff and with a simple swipe, a swirl of green and black flames began to appear before the small group, slowly taking shape,

"there is a fine line between a cation man and fearful one" the spirt held his staff to the swirling black and green flames as they shaped into a lone figure, holding up a sword looking defensive on a flat plane.

"the cautious man is the one who prepares for the unseen attacks of his enemies."

The shapes turned as a second figure spawned from the flat plane, it was unarmed and nonchalantly passed the armed man. But soon after passing him, a blade formed in the passing figure as it turned quickly to strike down the first armed apparition. But the sword wielding shape of a person acted fast, dodging the surprise attack, and in the same motion swung his sword and decapitated his attacker.

"but the fearful man see's danger in everything."

Suddenly the image changes, as multiple people begin to appear around the armed figure, each one of them holding a blade in hand as they moved about him. The first armed figure begins to panic as he dashed about the crowd, avoiding anyone in his path, eventually, the end of the platform shits into a wall as the armed man braces his back against it, holding his sword to the armed crowd before him.

"his fear will come to rule him, consume him, and blind him of the pains he can cause…"

As the figure began to shake, one of the armed crowd walks before him, blade in hand and moving quickly to his position. Quacking, the armed figure slashes his sword and cuts down the charging person, only to look up as the charging figure shrinks to the size of a child, sword gone from its small hand. The armed figure stops and drops his sword, kneeling before the downed child,

"… and from the true dangers that lay hidden."

As the figure looks at the fallen child, a swarm of sharp toothed creatures appears from the wall the first braced against before. They move quickly and lunge at the unsuspecting man before the Fel flames swirl and disappear into the black air of the zone. Clockwork drops his smirk as he looks Danny straight in the eye,

"do not move without cation Danny, but do not act with fear; if you leave it unchecked, it will destroy more of you then any pain an enemy can give."

Danny said nothing, his face neutral as he looked at his mentors face. Finally, he gave a single nod as he turned to each of them, giving his farewells. With a quick exchange of goodbyes and a promises for next week, he turned to the direction of his keep and walked.

About a few steps in, his person burred in a quick flash of white-blue as a quick, high pitched, static like sound sounded out, with Danny disappearing, leave no trace.

(~)

"GOOD MORNING ICHI-"

And that was as far as Keigo got before being close lined by Ichigo as he walked through the door into the classroom, a pure look of uncaring on his face, just like every morning. In the corner was Rukia and Orihime talking with small smiles as Tatsuki as busy giving that pervert Chizuru a head lock, no doubt for some transgression he missed, as chad sat at his desk, taking notes from his textbook with his usual neutral face. Mizuiro stepped up from where he was obviously waiting for Keigo's morning abuse,

"morning Ichigo, how you doing today?"

It felt good to have a normal conversation again, between the strange noises coming from his new neighbors, his family's strange theories (well, his dad and Yuzu's theories), and the animated ball of fuzzy annoyance Kon, it was defiantly a relief to have something normal to talk about.

"okay for the most part, wish I got a little more sleep though,"

He grumbled as he clicked his tongue, last night was not exactly too cozy, apparently whatever the Fenton couple needed to do to set up for their new "lab" made an incredible racket, as the pounding of metal and the loud twirl of power tools sounded throughout the night, punctuated by the occasional explosion. It eventually died down after what he could only guess was the older sister Jazz yelling something in English. He fought back a yawn as Keigo bounced back onto his feet, a frantic look on his face,

"Ichigo, have you heard the news! It's unbelievable! Unthinkable! Why I …"

Keigo continued to rant, but Ichigo hardly paid attention, his high strung friend tended to blow things way out of proportion. Hoping to stop the assault on his ears, he turned to Mizuiro, a far more reliable and rational source, and asked with a distinct look of board annoyance,

"So what's this big news to get up his ass this time?"

Mizuiro blinked as he quirked his head, "you really don't know? I figured you did since …"

Before he could finish, their conversation was interrupted by Ms. Ochi walking through the door,

"alright! Everyone to your seats, I've got a big announcement today!"

Every quickly shuffled to their seats, Ichigo sitting closes to the window with Rukia to his right, the front and back seats left empty. After waiting a moment for everyone to settle in, Ms. Ochi addressed the class,

"Okay everyone! As you may or may not have heard, our school just received two new American transfer students…"

Ichigo gave a silent huff, of course he knew that, they moved in right next to him! But what could this have to … do with … his … class …

… no way…

"they're siblings from the same family, one of them being you age …"

There's no freak'n way his luck is that bad …

"and while as unorthodox as it is getting two transfer students so close together, our class has been chosen to take him, please welcome Daniel Fenton from Amity Park Illinois!"

The teach waved to the door as it opened, and from the door way walked in Danny Fenton, book bag in hand. He was wearing the schools gray uniform, that while did match his height, hung a bit too wide on his thin frame as he walked to the front of the class. His face still looked as brooding as ever, save for the small nervous half smile on his lips, his bangs flowed over, almost covering his eyes.

Ichigo couldn't stop the look of shock that crossed his face, and apparently neither could the American as he turned his head to him and Rukia, his nervous smile dropped, and his eyes widened for a split second before he continued to the front of the class. He stood before everyone, gave an almost silent sigh and said in an almost unsure tone,

"hi,"

The teacher cleared her throat, "Mr. Fenton here is our new transfer student, along with his older Sister Jazmine, who is a third year student. Their family recent moved into town for work related reasons, I expect you all to make Mr. Fenton feel welcomed here in class 3-1, got it."

Ms. Ochi's voice held a stern note, but Ichigo wasn't really paying that much attention to her, his sole focus was on the new kid, as he turned his head back and forth, looking at the class. For a split second, his eyes diverted from Ichigo and Rukia and landed on both Chad, Tatsuki, and Orihime, lasting only a quick glace between them as each of his friends raised a curious, if not weary brow to the new student. The Fenton kid's eyes did however settle on someone else, as he looked to the opposite end of the front row and a similar look of shock passed his face for only a fraction of a second before diverting his attention to the class in whole. The kid he looked at was some dark haired, glasses wearing kid with a sewing kit on his front desk who, while he couldn't see his face from here, had his head facing firmly at the new kid. Ms. Ochi spoke again,

"well, Mr. Fenton, is there anything you'd like to add?"

He turned to her before quickly turning to the class again, looking as awkward as can be, lifting his right hand and rubbing the back of his neck.

"err ... yea well, Ms. Ochi pretty much covered everything, so there's not much to add … nice to meet you all."

He gave a small awkward wave and a nervous little chuckle as Ichigo lifted an eyebrow. He might not be an expert, but Ichigo felt he knew enough to spot an act, so either this guy was running a shell game far over his head, or he really was getting the most nerve-wracking vibes from this walking talking bag of social insecurity. Before the guy could actually embarrass himself, the teach took pity on him,

"well, if there's nothing else, how about to sit there in front of Mr. Kurosaki?"

Both Ichigo and Fenton gave a near unnoticeable flinch before the kid calmly walked to his desk, giving Ichigo a small nervous and hesitant,

" .. hey…"

As cautious as the kid made him feel, Ichigo decided it wouldn't be quite right to be rude in the face of such a clearly nervous new kid, and returned with an almost equally awkward and neutral,

"hey,"

The kid gave a nod to him, and one hesitantly to Rukia, who while didn't look hostile, held a look of pure cation towards him. She gave a quick nod back as the new kid slid into his new desk and placed his book bag next to his chair legs, pulling out a notebook and pencil for the upcoming lesson.

Ichigo stared at him for a second before turning to Rukia, and judging by the look in her eye, she was thinking the same thing as him, as much as they wanted answers, the middle of the lesson was not the place for a Q and A. They'd wait, and when the opportunity to pull the kid aside came up, then they'll get to the bottom of this.

(~)

'the only thing worse than going to new school is having two of your class mates behind you trying to stare a hole through your head'

Danny had gone through the last few periods making a conscious effort not to look at either Ichigo or Rukia, but even then he could feel them staring right at him. The shared observation of his person would have put a chill down his spine if not for his already cold core.

He gave an inaudible, defeated sight, today was not exactly panning out like he had hopped, not that most days ever did, but he had wished for at least one or two days before painting a target on his back. Worse still was that fact the Ichigo and Rukia weren't alone, beside the three other kids in the class that where at least spiritually aware, that long dark haired glasses kid was clearly not normal. He wasn't a soul reaper, he could tell that, and he had nowhere near the raw power Ichigo did, but what he lacked in power he more than made up for in refinement. The guy was defiantly no greenhorn, he had all the telltale spiritual marks of someone with a decent amount of training, but in what exactly he had no clue, he had never felt a spiritual pressure like this before. Curious, and seeing nothing better to do while his human half studied/ trying to avoid Ichigo and Rukia, his ghost half make a quick jump to ghost writer, who had only just left his keep for their study session. It took a little bit of trying to describe what he felt before he pulled up a Fel view screen of the memory of the guy, letting ghost writer look at the pendent tired around the guy's wrist. Apparently, not only did his new class have two soul reapers, but a Quincy as well, which was just his luck. According to ghost writer, the Quincy's where exterminated by the soul society, with only a few surviving members remaining, which did suck, but there wasn't much Danny could do for the dead … well, actually dead. He asked ghost writer of the possibilities of this Quincy guy being hostile, to which ghost writer responded,

"I have no Idea; the Quincy's apparently were solely focused on eradicating hollows. Some members of the clan did hunt ghosts, while others communed with a few stray apparitions and elementals for boons in battle, most however, where indifferent, and would only care about ghosts if they stood in the way of the clan. There's nothing about the kid I can see that pegs him as a ghost hunter, so my guess is as long as you leave him alone, he'll leave you alone."

That gave him some comfort, he was use to unconcerned neutrality from his peers, he had a lot of experience at being _socially_ invisible. Now if he could get the two reapers off his back, he was poised to coast through his high school unnoticed, well, as unnoticed as a foreign transfer student could be. But that was unlikely at the moment, it was clear Ichigo and Rukia were going to confront him about his strange spiritual pressure at some point, probably at lunch. He had promised to meet his sister on the roof for lunch, but the roof would be the perfect place to have their chat with no interference, he just hoped Jazz didn't mind the company. Soon enough, the instructor broke for lunch; Danny bent down to grab his book bag, a quickly made paper bag lunch inside (made by him to avoid his mother's reanimated cooking,) and was about to get up when a weird brown haired kid walked up, with a wild look and an exited smile on his face.

"Hello new kid! Great to meet you! My name is Keigo Asano this guy …" he gave an overdramatic wave to the dark haired kid next to him, who had a small welcoming smile, looked far less manic, and had interrupted said loon,

"hi, my names Mizuiro Kojima, it's a pleasure to meet you."

It was a nice gesture, and the guy was polite, but Danny had dealt with the fruit loop Vlad to know a fake smile, the guy screamed playboy playing it cool. It would probably be best to keep an eye out for him when Jazz was around, Danny would like to think he had enough faith in Jazz to keep away from a creep, but there was the whole incident with Johnny and … well … a brother could worry. His contemplation was broken by the over exited Keigo,

"So new kid! How about you come with us down to the field for lunch, there's always some cute girls eating in the shade down there, and with your brooding foreign emo charms, we're sure to attract a few hotties!"

That caught Danny by surprise, sure, after he gained the throne and developing his more … depressed look … there were a few girls that came up to him. But most of the opposite sex in Casper still never really gave him the time of day, and those that did approach were scared off by a combination of Sam and Valerie. Paulina certainly never gave him a second glace, though by the time he did change, that stopped really bothering him. Yea, she was still hot, but he leaned even teenage boy attraction can die hard and fast with the simple utterance of the name "Invisobill" every time she saw his ghost form. It can even fall greater when he learned she had bought a jar of toenails online that claimed to be from the "ghost boy". Danny was so glad he learned how to control his invisibility, ghosts can be seen by normal humans, due to the fact that ectoplasm still contains a mixture of human world elements. But ghosts have the subconscious ability to phase out of sight from normal humans, choosing to only be visible to spiritually aware humans. Though most of the spirits that plagued Amity rarely did, half of them entered Amity to scare or harm humans, and the other half where there to throttle him so there really wasn't much point in hiding. For Danny however, it was a definite advantage, the attention was nice but one government agency gunning for your hide was one too many in his book. He gave a small sigh looking straight at Keigo, an apologetic smile on his face,

"Sorry, but I'm gonna have to pass."

Keigo drooped down, a look of exaggerated depression on his face, Mizuiro gave a small wistful sigh, whither out of disappointment or relief he couldn't tell. Keigo lifted his head, his eyes shut as streams of tears flowed down his face,

"but why not?!"

Danny shook his head before getting up from his seat, grabbing his book bag on the way up, "I promised my sister Jazz that I'd meet her on the roof for lunch,"

as he spoke, he gave Ichigo and Rukia, who were still observing him, a quick look that he hopped coved "up there" as clearly as possible. It was a quick look, but judging by the fact that they both left their seats soon after meant at least some of his message went through. He turned back to the crying Keigo, who was oblivious to the silent summons and gave him another apologetic smile,

"and don't take the wrong way, but I don't really think that plan would work, but thanks for the invite, maybe some other time."

He got a depressed sounding "ok," from Keigo and "see you later" from Mizuiro as he calmly walked to the class room door, Ichigo and Rukia not far behind. As they walked through the halls, Ichigo and Rukia were silent, thankfully they saw the merit in keeping this privet. Danny concentrated, he felt Jazz's spiritual pressure on the roof above him, she must have just gotten there, he 'd have to hurry up or she might get worried. But as they walked the hallways, he sensed a few people coming their way. He could sense they were all normal humans, so he had hoped that it was just a group of students making their way down to their favorite lunch spot, but his hopes where dash when the group turned the corner in front of him.

He gave a defeated sigh and whispered to himself "can't the universe pick on someone else for a change?"

(~)

He and Rukia had been following Fenton to the roof, silently watching as they made their way through the school. So far, he hadn't done anything out of the norm, he even politely declined Keigo's dumbass plan, so he clearly was not openly hostile, that didn't mean he wasn't going to keep his guard up.

Suddenly the kid stopped, and it wasn't hard to see why as a group of 'A' typical thugs stepped around the corner, this school did have a reputation of bringing in more annoying pieces of trash. The thugs swaggered over, disgusting grins on their faces as they stopped in front of the new kid and "tried" to look intimidating, but as the Fenton kid turned his head about the group, Ichigo caught a look of pure unconcerned annoyance plain on his face. One of the bigger idiots, a guy with a tacky red Mohawk stepped up to the new guy and stood just a few inches taller than him, based on body language alone, Ichigo could tell this guy was the ringleader.

"Well lookie here boys, we've got ourselves that new American student."

Like a corny villain with his moronic goons, the group began to chuckle at some unheard joke,

"Must come from some good money to come all the way across the ocean! Right?"

The moron's tone made it clear what he wanted, but goon still saw the need to punch his right fist into his left palm to apparently make it clear. Despite, that, Fenton didn't even flinch, putting his hands in his pants pockets, and simply replying in a light, almost joking voice,

"no, not really, my parents just have an … interesting choice in careers."

The Goons all blinked, almost in unison, apparently weirded out by the fact that they weren't as intimidating as the obviously thought they were. Although, Ichigo did have to admit that he could see their confusion, to a normal human, Fenton didn't look too tough, sure he was tall, but was way too thin to look anywhere near a threat. In fact, if it weren't for the spiritual warning bells in his head, Ichigo would have probably stepped in by now, just to shut these idiots up. But it was precisely because of the kid's radiating weirdness that he wasn't doing anything, he wanted to see what the kid could do, though if it turns out all that Fenton had was a creepy vibe and no skills, he'd lend a hand. Who knows, maybe the kid was a monster in disguise, and Ichigo would have to keep these turds from getting themselves killed. Personally, he'd rather the kid stayed in control, if only to keep him from having to save these rejects.

It took a second, but the red Mohawk leader regained his composure and sneered at the kid,

"really? Well that's a shame, maybe we can talk about this to that sister of yours …"

It was faint, probably barely noticeable to regular humans, but Ichigo felt a sudden chill in the air, like the temperature dropped a few degrees. He heard a quite gasp next to him as Rukia stared wide eyed at the Fenton kid. The voice of the thug brought his attention back to the group,

"got a good look at her when you two passed the front gate, she's quite the hot little honey, maybe you could introduce us eh, I'd love to have a girl like that on my arm."

Ichigo felt another spike in the temperature for a fraction of a second before it stopped, the warmth in the air returning as Fenton gave a small chuckle of his own,

"well you can try, but I wouldn't hold my breath, see Jazz has this thing against loud mouthed idiots."

As quick as the big idiot could, he swung a fist straight at the American's face, but hit nothing but air as the Fenton kid lazily dodged the fist, his head turned so Ichigo could see his face, his eyes were closed and he had a small taunting smirk. The thug growled in frustration and kept swinging at the kid, who just kept his eyes closed, dodging with barely any effort. The now rightfully christened loud mouth eventually stopped to give a few gasps of air, sweat starting to gather on his face whereas Fenton hadn't a drop on him. Some of the passing kids who stopped to look at the commotion gave a few awed looks and whispers, from what Ichigo could hear, everyone was questioning how a kid that thin could be barely breaking a sweat, a question Ichigo would be asking himself in their shoes. The fight itself wasn't all to amazing, the thug's moronic leader was barely worth the effort, clearly use to throwing around his bulk instead of knowing how to make a decent punch. A properly trained eight-year-old could take down this loser and his crew, he should know given he did just that around that age. But it wasn't without a good amount of sweat, and a guy as skinny as Fenton should at least be giving a few breaths, of course this would be if the guy was normal, which he clearly wasn't.

The loud mouth leader gave a few angrier breaths, "That's it yea freak! I'm not playing around, get this punk boys!"

The moron's goons gave an excited cry before rushing the new kid, but instead of panicking as any regular guy would, Fenton only gave another chuckle as he shook his head. Punches were thrown at him, kicks were shot, some of those clowns even brought out bats and pipes, but Fenton dodged them again with the barest effort, his eyes closed, and his playful smirk still intact. Soon after, the goons began hitting their own, aiming for Fenton but hitting their comrade when he dodged out of the way.

"no way,"

A soft voice of surprise issued from Ichigo's side, he turned and saw Tatsuki standing next to him, looking wide eyed at the new kid, she must have heard the commotion on her way to the school yard.

"That's no accident, the kids leading them to take each other out!"

Ichigo turned to look at kid as he moved out of the way of a goon bringing down a steel pipe to smash his friend on the shoulder. Tatsuki was right, Fenton was intentionally moving to get these guys to deal with themselves, and while it was somewhat comforting that he wasn't just going to let loose on some normal humans, it had some very serious implications. As weird as the kid's power felt, there wasn't much about him visibly that could make him a threat, it could have been that he was just a normal guy that was given a little spiritual weirdness from his parent's work. But this was not the work of a normal kid, Fenton was clearly trained, fairly extensively if he could pull moves like this. He turned to Rukia as she silently gave him a serious nod before returning to the fight.

The last two goons gave might swings before being dodged by Fenton and knocking each other out cold, leaving their witless leader standing a few feet away, doing a wonderful impression of a goldfish. That didn't last as Fenton turned his head to the leader,

"that was fun, got my heart rate going, but I really got to move, I have some … business to sort out before lunch ends."

The thug glared murderously at Fenton, who by body language alone Ichigo could tell looked completely bored. The Thug charged, huffing like a bull, as Fenton kept calmly still. But before the bull could get to the boy, a classroom door next to Fenton opened with a black-haired first year stepping out, unintentionally getting in the way. The blood thirsty thug kept charging though, throwing his fist back and yelling as the girl turned around and let out a frightened scream,

"GET OUT OF MY WAY BI…!"

Before the thug's fist could connect, before Ichigo, Rukia, and Tatsuki could even react, Fenton stood in front of the girl, getting there before anyone realized he moved. He was holding the thugs punch in one hand while his other was formed into a fist and plowed into the loud mouth's stomach, a wide eyed look planted on both the idiots face, the crowd, and the startled girl. Soon after, the loud mouth's eyes rolled up as he fell over to his side unconscious as Fenton gave a quick calming breath, turning to the would be victim with a reassuring look on his face and asked,

"you ok?"

The girl didn't respond, she just gave a wide eyed nod, Fenton gave a quick nod in return before turning to Ichigo and Rukia, looking them both in the eyes for a split second before turning back down the way he was walking, the crowd parting quickly without a word as he passed.

Ichigo and Rukia both followed after, Tatsuki would have too, if Orihime didn't decide to call out her name, Ichigo looked aback at the call and saw Tatsuki look unsure between following, or meeting her friend. Orihime gave another call before she finally decided to talk to her friend, leaving Ichigo and Rukia to follow the kid to the roof.

They weren't leaving till they got some straight answers.

(~)

 **OK that's the second chapter, I seriously did not mean for it to take this long, but I just started a new semester so things have been a little crazy.**

 **I can't really think of anything I want to say about this chapter, so lease read and enjoy, I promise to try and get the next one out sooner. And please post a review, anything you feel might need to be improved, your comments help a lot in formatting these stories.**

 **Thanks and enjoy!**


	3. Hidden blades, Hidden Enemies

**Sorry about the release schedule, my school works off a weird semester schedule, ands been nearing the end of this semester for me. Also, real quick, between the latin and Japanese, there are going to be a lot of words that hold accented letters and I'm sorry, but I will not be using said accents. I know that means that the words I'll be using are spelled incorrectly, but it would take a lot more time in editing to fix that, and I already have and irregular release schedule. I apologies, but I'm gong to have to leave those out, I'm sorry.**

 **Hope you like the chapter, as always I do not own Danny phantom or Bleach,**

Hidden Blades, Hidden Enemies

Jazz gave a loud sigh, "he's late, and he's only late when something happens." She gave a huff as she crossed her arms and stated tapping her elbows, a look of both annoyance and worry on her face.

The worst part was that she knew he'd be late, Danny attracted trouble like magnet, even before the accident, only back then the trouble wasn't potentially life threatening. Jazz dipped her head and gave a defeated sigh, when did it get so crazy? How did it get to the point that her clueless little brother was constantly wrapped up in the strangest and most dangerous of circumstances? As much as Jazz would like to deny it, it was probably due to the craziness of their family, not just their parents but the Fenton's as a whole. Their family had for generations intentionally sought to interfere with the supernatural, and as unscientific as it seemed, Jazz had learned that braving such unknowns usually brought with it a lot of baggage, and Danny was the unfortunate soul to carry that debt. Jazz brought her hand to her temple, she really had to stop thinking like this, it was unhealthy, for her and Danny, and lord knows Danny had enough troubles to deal with.

Just as she was about to bring out her phone to give him a quick text, the door to the roof opened and her little brother walked out, Jazz was about to greet him when she noticed the sheepish grin on his face. She narrowed her eyes, she knew that look, Danny always used that look when he did or was about to do something she would defiantly not like. Her suspicions were confirmed when Ichigo and Rukia walked out onto the roof right behind him, giving her brother a pair of the most suspicious stares.

Danny had told her that they both were soul reapers, which put Jazz on edge about the two, doubly so when she heard of Ichigo's more violent tendencies. Although he apparently only fought against thugs, so it seemed he did act by a code of ethics, which while slightly comforting, wasn't going to convince Jazz to drop her guard just yet. Still, there wasn't a guaranty that they'd be hostile, and they seemed civil enough to follow Danny, maybe this time they can get around a fight by talking it o … yea right, best not tempt fate, or this case, Danny's bad luck.

The group of one-part nervous brother two parts suspicious soul reaper finally reached her, her brother still holding his awkward grin, placed his book bag leaning against the roof fence and took his now free right hand and rubbed the back of his neck,

"hey Jazz…" She lifted an incredulous eyebrow at his clearly guilty expression and gave a flat "Something up little brother?"

He gave a small nervous chuckle, "hope you don't mind but Ichigo and Rukia have to … talk about stuff…" She kept her stare on him for a second before dropping her head and giving a loud sigh,

"I guess it was too much to ask to have a quite lunch," she heard him give another weak chuckle before lifting her head and glanced at both Ichigo and Rukia. Their intense look had softened just a tad during Jazz's exchange with her brother, but serious airs were donned as soon as both Danny and Jazz turned their attention towards them. There was a moment of silence as Danny put up his own serious attitude, putting his hands in his pockets, his back straight and while she couldn't see from this angle, looking both directly in the eyes, with a firm neutral line of a mouth. It was a stance he had developed when dealing with Vlad, a defiant, strong guard against the elder halfa's manipulations, and it both Impressed and saddened her that her once cute little brother had developed such a cold side to him.

The silence between them continued, both groups thinking of what to say first, Rukia gave a quick glace between Jazz and her brother before Danny spoke,

"you don't need to worry about Jazz, anything we need to talk about can be said around her." A small touch of pride sparked in her as Jazz suppressed the small smirk on her lips,

"besides, you should know already that both of us aren't your typical American kids." She could tell by her brother's tone that a small smirk danced on his lips before returning to his look of cold focus. Ichigo and Rukia shared a nod before Ichigo spoke up,

"aright then, I guess first things first, what the hell are you?"

Well that was kind of rude, she gave him a little glare for the comment before he continued,

"your clearly not a normal kid, forgetting your parents strange job, there was that fight downstairs …"

Fight?! Her glare intensified, but instead of directing it to Ichigo, she leveled it at her brother, who turned his head to give her a sheepish smile and whispered "I tell you later," She folded her arms and gave a huff before Ichigo resumed,

"that wasn't beginner's luck or some other bullshit like that, your trained, and judging by the weird vibes you give out, defiantly not by some crappy little sports club."

His eyes narrowed as he looked straight in Danny's, standing on guard for anything. Danny said nothing for a second before responding,

"you want to know what I am? no offence, but I could ask the same thing about you, after all …" He looked between Rukia and Ichigo for a quick moment, "from what I heard, soul reapers don't usually hide out with families in the world of the living."

Ichigo's eyes widened as he gave a surprised "what?!" before he regained his composure, glaring right at Danny. Rukia on the other hand, hadn't even flinched, she apparently wasn't too surprised that Danny figured out that they were soul reapers, but then again, according to Danny, Ichgo was about as subtle about his energy as the Box ghost was about his intentions.

Ichigo dropped his glare, giving a small calming sigh before donning a less angry, but still rather intense look at her brother, "I guess that's fair, I have nothing to hide, first off, I'm not hiding out with my family, I actually live there."

Jazz quirked her head, he lived there? But … "wait," she said, drawing everyone's attention, "You ' _live'_ there, live there? But I thought soul reapers all came from soul society?"

"Not exactly …" He turned his head to Rukia, who seemed to debate for a second, looking between the two before giving a small defeated sigh,

"your right, but between Ichigo and myself, I'm the only that's actually from soul society." She folded her arms before tilling her head to the side, and Jazz could be wrong, but she looked a tad embarrassed,

"I was sent to oversee this town and protect it from hollows, but one night, a hollow caught me off guard and was poised to devour Ichigo, his family, and myself." She paused for only a moment, tilting her head down just a tad,

"without any options, I infused Ichgo with a measure of my spiritual powers, giving him the powers of a soul reaper, and leaving me temporarily drained of mine."

Jazz's eyebrows raised in surprise, she looked over to Danny who also gave her a quick look of surprise, before turning back as Ichigo spoke up,

"so now I'm acting as the substitute soul reaper of this town."

Substitute? She never heard of a substitute soul reaper, then again she barely had much knowledge of the soul reapers other than they exist.

"so you got my story, now how about yours?"

his intense glare was back, but judging from how relaxed Danny's poster was, he wasn't exactly eager to return the caution, and Jazz could understand why. At first, both she and Danny had feared that their presence meant that soul society had gotten word of his existence or that the presence of two soul reapers instead of the usual one per region meant that the soul society had a greater presence in the town. But judging from Rukia's and Ichigo's story, Jazz doubted that either were the case, there was always the chance that they were lying, but their story seemed to specific in detail to be a hoax. Danny looked back at her for a split second, the question "should I?" written plainly on his face. Jazz took a second to think, it really didn't seem like Ichigo or Rukia meant any ill intent, and it would probably do better to cooperate with that amounted to the local authorities then possibly antagonizing them. She gave her brother a quick nod before he turned again, his hand back to his neck before he spoke,

"well … my story is actually not too far off from yours." A small note of confusion passed between the two soul reapers and while they didn't completely drop their guards, Danny's more relaxed nature seemed to put them more at easy.

"Just to be clear here, I'm not some weird thing in disguise or some psychopath trying to hurt anyone in town, I'm just Danny Fenton, some American kid that came here when my parents needed to move for their work, simple as that."

Danny's head gave s small dive as he released a small sigh, "but your also right that I'm not exactly a normal kid … er … well, normal with weird parents."

Neither Ichigo or Rukia really responded, well, Ichigo did give a small snort but Rukia still stayed as focused as ever as Danny continued,

"look, it's like this, a few years ago, our parents were messing with something big in their labs, something to boost their research in ghost, a portal,"

Rukia gave a gasp as her eyes widened, "a portal? To the ghost's home dimension? That impossible! Normal humans can't open a gateway between the words without some source of …"

Her word cut off as she started wide eyed at Danny and Jazz, Ichigo was standing there, glancing between Danny and herself, looking horribly confused. Not the Jazz could blame him, it was hard to take in all at once. Before he could ask, Danny finished Rukia's statement,

"without a source of Reshi, which you probably noticed our parents have in the form of ectoplasm. Fortunately for us, their more eccentric and hunter like nature keeps them from actually learning about ghosts, and subsequently about anything else spiritual, but even without that, they somehow figured out how to use ectoplasm."

Rukia's head dipped as she brought a hand to grasp her chin, a contemplative frown on her face. There was a quiet moment before Ichigo spoke again, this time with look of annoyance mixed with his confusion,

"as interesting as that probably is, how about we get back to the question at hand."

Danny turned to Ichigo, "oh yea, sorry, didn't mean to get off track there, it's just that Jazz and I hear our parents ramble on and on about this junk so often that we could recite it our sleep."

Jazz herself gave a roll of her eyes and a quick huff, which brought the two soul reapers attention to her, which she responded to her brother's comment with a mixture of a raised shoulder and a quick nod. Danny continued, his hand never leaving his neck as he began to shift on his feet,

"So like I was saying, our parents where messing with this portal, and called me and Jazz down to show it off, but when they plugged it, all it did was fizzle out and die,"

Danny gave a quick sigh as he lowered his hand, turning his head to look at anywhere but another face,

"our parents were so disappointed, the portal was their life's work and I … I don't know, I just didn't like to see them like that. So a couple days later, when I was showing my best friends the portal I decided to … you know, check it out,"

He gave a small, unsure shrug of his shoulder, still determined not to look Ichigo and Rukia in the face, the two of which were listening intently, however with even less hostility, probably off put by Danny's clear discomfort. Jazz, however, was looking primarily at her brother, her frown turning a little more analytical in nature, Danny had omitted Sam's part in the affair. Jazz had never really blamed Sam for the accident, and she knew Danny certainly didn't, even though she knew for a fact that Sam held a measure of guilt for the incident. But his lack of anger towards Sam wasn't what bothered her, it was how her brother worded this explanation, making it sound like he was to blame. She already knew he did, Danny had always been too critical of himself even before the accident, an unfortunate trait he developed from his years of bullying. He was certainly more well-adjusted now, gaining a lot of self-confidence through his training, but he still had that that lingering self-conscious trait that sometimes did him more harm than a battle could. Looks like she was going to have another talk with him about that, even if she had to take the speeder to the zone and pound the lesson into his thick ethereal head.

"By a stroke of bad or good luck, I got the portal working, but not without a nasty shock that left a few … side effects."

Danny slowly raised his right hand, deliberately making sure not to have his palm face either Ichigo or Rukia so as to keep them from interpreting the action as an attack, and with his palm face up, created a small vortex of ice and snow around his hand. Both Ichigo and Rukia looked at the small snowstorm in his hand with wide eyes, Rukia particularly giving the display and intense gaze. Soon Danny dissipated the storm and gave them nervous shrug,

"and thats pretty much the story, since then, I've had these powers and I've ... you know, tried to live with them."

For a fraction of second, Jazz held her breath for their response, as relaxed as their postures had become, Jazz wasn't going to let her guard down until she knew they meant no harm. For a few seconds, Rukia and Ichigo looked at one another, their previous hostility seemed to have evaporated as both seemed to be digesting her brothers admittedly vague explanation. Finally, Ichigo stepped up with questioning look as he addressed her brother,

"So you got you powers from this portal thing, but what exactly are those powers?"

His tone, while a little abrasive, was calm enough to tell he didn't think Danny as much of a potential threat anymore, or at the very least calm enough to try and be civil. Danny's own tense posture soon relaxed as he spoke,

"well, the portal pretty much infused me with a high measure of spiritual energy, kind of like you, only with ghost energy."

Danny gave a quick look between both Ichigo and Rukia, probably to see if they were following what he was saying. Ichigo was nodding along, a contemplative look on his face as he absorbed what Danny was saying, Rukia herself was fully engaged, but she seemed more eager than her partner,

"So because of that, I got the usual host of ghost powers, flight, invisibility, intangibility, those are the basics, as well as command of a few spectral energies, like that ice I showed you guys."

Danny had been listing his powers off his fingers, curiously however, Jazz noticed he omitted overshadowing, though she could understand why, probably best not to admit to that power when trying to convince someone you mean no harm,

"beyond those basics they're aren't any real specific abilities, most of what I can do is manipulate a few pools of energy I have and channel them into techniques through my body and my sword…"

"Sword?"

Rukia had been the one to interrupt Danny, though Ichigo looked just as curious she, Danny looked between them.

"yea, do you guys want to see it."

They shared a look before Ichigo gave Danny a nod, then Danny brought his hand to his heart to pull out his blade, she never really liked how her brother stored his blade. Sure, phasing it was a lot safer and more practical than wearing it everywhere, and it was also true it didn't do anything to damage him, but it always looked so painful to her. Though she had to admit it was amusing to see Ichigo and Rukia's shocked faces when her brother drove his hand into his heart, even if the image made her wince just the slightest. It looked like the two were about to rush over to Danny to give whatever emergency aid they thought was needed before they saw Danny pulled out the hilt if blade straight from his chest. They both looked wide eyed and mouths gaping as Danny pulled the rest of his blade out with a small flourish of his wrist before holding it up for them to see,

"sorry, forgot to warn you, but I usually keep this puppy phased into my being for safe keeping, and it's a lot better than lugging it around all day."

"y-yea…"

Ichigo finished lamely, he looked a tad embarrassed about getting worked up over nothing, Rukia on the other hand, keep her wide eyed stare as she looked at the blade. Quick as a flash she rushed up to Danny, who in surprise by the sudden action took a step back as she inspected his blade.

"unbelievable, but this spiritual pressure confirms it, this is a Zanpakuto!"

"What?!"

Ichigo's outburst had startled Jazz as the orange haired boy looked wide eyed at both Rukia and Danny,

"you're a soul reaper?! I thought you said you got ghost powers?"

Danny regained his composure from his jump at Ichigo's outburst and gave the other boy a calm, reassuring smile,

"I did, but the infusion of spiritual energy also awakened my Zanpakuto, and meshed my powers between a soul reaper and ghost, giving me abilities of both. So I'm not really a soul reaper, but neither am I a ghost, I kind of … my own thing."

He gave a week chuckle as Ichigo's suspicious stare lowered into incredulous annoyance, while Rukia had stepped back gave Danny a curious glance,

"I've never heard of such a hybridization, but then again, if your story is true, I'd have no clue what such an experimental portal could do to a normal human."

Jazz raised an eyebrow, slightly offended at the doubt, but couldn't bring herself to blame Rukia for it, they had really nothing to substantiate it besides Danny's sword and their word. Her brother turned to Rukia after lowering his sword to his side,

"I know it's hard to believe, but if you want, we could show you the portal, my parents worked all night to get it fixed to the basement wall and get it working, and they certa-…"

Danny stopped in mid-sentence, which given Jazz's experience was never a good sign, doubly so when he rapidly turned to her with such a worried face.

"JAZZ, BEHIND YOU!"

She saw Danny taking one step before she quickly turned around, seeing a large black hole in the sky, with a maw of white masked teeth just a few feet away.

(~)

There were many times in his training that Danny asked Clockwork whether what he was learning was truly necessary, case in point was his _Gradu_ \- (quick step) technique, which was as Clockwork said, his equivalent of a soul reaper's flash step. It function essentially the same as any soul reaper flash step, only with a few added effects, with a blueish white light and high pitched static sounds. Its primary difference was that he could incorporate his intangibility with the move, eliminating air resistance and moving even faster than a regular flash step.

With all these benefits, it wasn't hard for Danny to see the merit of the technique, just that it was a difficult move to learn, taking many hours of training from Clockwork to grasp the technique. And given that Danny was 12, just 8 months into his powers, meant that he had a patience to match his age, but even through all his complaining, Clockwork was adamant that he should master this move, telling him over and over,

"there won't be a time where you do not thank me for this move."

And since then, Clockwork's prediction (or he guessed statement fit better) had never failed, especially now.

Quickly channeling energy from his other self in the ghost zone, Danny quickly used _Gradu_ to get to his sister, pick her up while shifting his blade in his hand so as not to hurt her, and took another Gradu away from attacking hollow. He would have usually just cut it down, but the hollow by that point had smashed through the fence and damaged the end of the roof, if he had just cut it down, the force he would have created would damage the roof even more and possibly cause Jazz to plummet off.

After gaining a good distance, Danny gently put down his sister as she took a few calming breaths, before raising his blade towards their attacker. The hollow was shaped like a giant prey mantis, with razor sharp blades for pincers, a black body with four thin black legs and red, skin like wings on its back.

"Are you guys ok?!"

Ichigo shouted as he and Rukia stepped up to the creature, taking up defensive stances and giving the hollow focused glares. Despite the heavy atmosphere, Danny figured Jazz would do with a distraction from her shock, and responded with a small shrug, an amused note in his voice,

"Just fine, Jazz is a little frazzled, but she's always been a little too high strung."

That got him a smack on the back of the head as he looked back for a fraction of a second at her annoyed pout before turning a angered frown at the pest in front. The hollow hadn't spoken yet, simply looking erratically between him and jazz and Ichigo and Rukia. It seemed this thing was just another bug, not even aware enough to do anything but eat, attack and howl; good news then, the bugs were the easier ones to deal with. He saw Rukia move, pulling out a strange red glove with a stylized skull covered in black and blue flames. From what he remembered from Clockwork's lectures, he'd wager a guess that the glove was something to release Ichigo's soul reaper form from his body, but before Rukia could confirm his suspicions, the hollow reacted to her motion, and attacked.

The two quickly dove out of the way of the things blade like pincers, constantly attacking and _coincidently_ keeping Ichigo from coming out of his body. Danny narrowed his eyes, that thing was defiantly too stupid to try such a strategy, something else was at play here. It wasn't uncommon for the less sentient hollows to be organized or commanded by the tougher, or smarter ones, it looked like a decently competent beast was pulling this bugs strings. It probably caught a sniff of Ichigo's raw power and thought this little scheme up get a hefty meal, too bad it didn't know anything about Danny.

Just before the hollow could get in another strike on the two, Danny gave one more _Gradu_ and moved in front the hollows blades, blocking both with his own before pushing back against the bug, making it leap into the air before its wings spread out and hovered in the air, giving Danny a loud howl. Wasting no time, Danny lifted up his left hand, as a glowing white, icy blue mist gathered around it. He leveled his glowing palm at the hollow, his eyes gaining a small icy blue glow as his voice gained a subtle echo,

" _Falcibus et Glacies Ventus-_ (Scythes of Wind Ice)"

The icy mist gave a quick flash before vanishing from his hand, as the hollow was suddenly sliced diced into perfectly cut pieces, and slowly dissolved into nothing.

Danny hoisted the flat of his blade to his shoulder before turning to Rukia and Ichigo, who were staring wide eyed at where the hollow had been before. They leveled their wide eyed stare at him Ichigo shouted at him, causing Danny to take a step back,

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?! How in the hell did you do that?! Where in the hell did you learn that?!"

Lifting his hands into a calming gesture, after Ichigo startled him, Danny lifted his hand to the back of his neck again,

"well … that was essentially my equivalent of an elemental Kido spell, you know some kido yourself, right?"

Ichigo gave a few blinks as he bore a clueless face,

"… Seriously? No Hado, not even a Bakudo or Kaido? I know you're a substitute, but from what I was told, Kido was like, soul reaper 101."

At this point, Ichigo's head was turned away, his shoulders slumped as his face seemed to increase in levels of sulking regret by every word Danny spoke. So much so that Danny quickly back pedaled, lifting his hands into another calming gesture,

"hey! Hey! It's cool, I guess it's not your fault, I mean, where would you learn stuff like that right?"

"exactly,"

Rukia had spoken up, but her tone was not exactly comforting, it held a serious tone about it that brought Ichigo out of his sulk. And Jazz, who had sufficiently calmed down and had come to stand by Danny, Rukia's tone was not as cautious as it was previously, more intensely curious,

"you don't just learn Kido without training or study, so where did you learn yours?"

She had folded her arms as she looked him dead in the eye,

"You might have some unique abilities, but getting power is not the same as mastering it, so who taught you?"

Danny had lifted his blade from his shoulder, as keeping his blade there caused it to cramp up, and brought it down to his side. As much as he wouldn't mind talking to both Rukia and Ichigo, seeing as they wouldn't be attacking him just yet, they unfortunately had bigger things to worry about. He gave a loud sigh,

"guys, I'll tell you everything, I swear, but we've got a bigger problem right now."

All eyes turned to Danny in confusion before Ichigo gave him a serious look and asked,

"what do you mean, what's the problem?"

Danny turned to him before turning to the whole group,

"Didn't that fight seem a little off? That thing was just a bug, it couldn't even speak outside of a howl, so how did it know to keep you from getting out of your body?"

Rukia folded her arms, turning her head to the now damaged side of the roof, her eyes gaining a sharp edge,

"your right, a hollow of that level couldn't have been smart enough to catch us off guard like that, let alone figuring out how to push us into a corner like that."

Ichigo turned between them,

"so what does that mean? Was it just smarter then it looked?"

Jazz had stepped up, giving a shake of her head, "No, it means something more intelligent was controlling it."

Danny turned to give her a nod before facing Ichigo,

"we've seen this before, back in Amity, the constant ghost attacks kept most of the more intelligent hollows away, but some of the cleverer ones would use their less sentient cousins to flesh out pluses or people to them."

Rukia gave a nod herself as she turned to the group,

"It's a usual tactic of the more intelligent hollows, usually to lure members of small soul reaper teams, and pick them off one by one." She turned to the damaged side of the roof again, having her whole body face the edge.

"My guess is that he's somewhere in town, close enough to sense when we would have been weak enough to deal with himself, yet far enough to keep us from picking up on him in case we survived."

Danny gave an amused chuckle as all but Jazz looked at him curiously,

"He might be untraceable to a normal soul reaper,"

He lifted his free hand, his palm facing skyward as a familiar, cocky grin formed on his face,

"but as we've established, I'm not normal."

A white flame ignited in his hand, blazing in a foot long plum before eight bursting white embers began to shoot from the top. The shots of flame grew and twirled as they flew in the air, taking shape into a pack of wolves, each made of shifting, moving white flame with solid glowing green eyes. They moved through the sky as if running on air, a few ghostly howls and growls issuing between them before as they descend to the roof. As they landed and moved about the roof, they felt no burns or scorch marks, despite being made of flames.

" _Lupus ad Tartara_ "- (Wolves of Tartarus)

One of the wolves walked up to Danny, being the size of a typical wolf as it stood to just above his waist, as he extinguished the flames in his hand tuned to Rukia and Ichigo, bring his free hand to the wolf's head, which bore his hands weight while not even leaving a hint of damage. Ichigo and Rukia were looking at him in shock again, Rukia especially looking shocked as it looked like her eyes were about to pop out of her skull,

"That's impossible! Ice spiritual energy is rare enough, but two, and that being fire?! That's- "

She didn't finish as she soon tried to regain her composure, rubbing her temples as she gave a few, albeit strained, calming breaths.

Danny in the meantime lifted his hand to the back of his neck and gave a week chuckle,

"what can I say? I'm just full of surprises,"

He brought his hand down to the wolf's head,

"more importantly, these guys can track down our hollow, I just need you guys to prepare."

Ichigo gave him a nod as Rukia gave one more look at the wolves and took a deep breath before re-adjusting the glove on her hand, and pushing said hand into Ichigo's chest. It spoke to Danny and Jazz's experience that neither really didn't respond to what others might see as a potential attempt at evisceration, well, Jazz did flinch, but beyond that she didn't respond in any way. Rukia gave a quick tug and in a flash of blue, pulled out Ichigo's soul reaper form by the folds of his Shihakusho, displaying the beast of a sword on his back. Danny almost asked him why he didn't compress his blade into a smaller size, just because Danny could be swinging around a building sized blade doesn't mean he'd want to. But then he remembered that Ichigo had just recently become a soul reaper, he probably didn't even know how to control his spiritual powers to such a degree yet, so he didn't say anything. He did however give a silent thank you to his instructors, from Pandora, to frostbite, to clockwork and Dora, to even ghost writer, if they hadn't so diligently beaten their lessons into his head, Danny would be nowhere near as skilled as he was.

After Rukia caught Ichigo's limp body, she turned to Danny, "you said you had a ghost's invisibility, does that mean you have the same control as one?"

He gave her a quick nod as he silently phased his person out of sight to normal humans, to Rukia, Ichigo and Jazz, nothing happened, but if any normal humans were present, it would have looked like he vanished into thin air.

"there, I'm only visible by spiritual attuned beings now, good thing to, I'd rather not explain to anyone what I'm doing out of school."

Jazz gave a shake of her head as she moved to next to Rukia to give her a hand with Ichigo's body before giving her brother a stern look, "frankly you shouldn't have any reason to leave at all." He gave her a few nervous laughs before she relented with a defeated sigh,

"but I guess your hero complex always gets the better of you,"

His nervous laugh morphed into an annoyed pout before she continued,

"and we can't very well let this thing get away to set up another trap, so just be quick, and a least try to be safe, for my sake?"

The little brother in him would have given a sarcastic reply to that, if he didn't hear the small, strain in her voice, to anyone who didn't know Jazz, it would have gone unheard, but Danny had more than enough experience to notice the worry in her voice.

Technically speaking, Danny was in no real danger, even if the hollow turned out to be tougher than they thought and took out this Danny, nothing would happen besides the him on this side vanishing. That was the great thing about duplication, it didn't matter what happened to one of him, so long as there was another, he wouldn't die. Of course the power wasn't omnipotent, while he could make a good number of himself, they all pulled from the same pool of power, meaning he had to micro-manage how much each of him got. Not only that, but each time one of his selves did get taken down, Danny would loss the power he invested in the double. For the low powered copies, the toll it took was nothing, something he could recover in a breath, but if a high powered copy was killed, then it would deal a significant blow to his stamina, and he'd need a moment to recover.

But even the fair amount of power he gave this version wouldn't be too taxing for him, meaning the risk to his person was minimal, nothing to worry about. But as he looked at the small smile of his sister, it was clear that the words "don't worry" would do more harm than good, even with such small risk, Jazz would still worry, if only a little. He gave a small nod and a small smile in return.

There wasn't much he could say, after all, a sister could worry.

He turned around to the city line as his wolves began to sniff air and around the battle scars on the roof. It took a moment, but Danny could feel when they had locked onto the scent of the hollows spiritual pressure as he could feel them instinctually turn with him to a point in the city skyline and growl. Danny glared in the direction of the hollow, not turning his head as he moved his eyes over to Ichigo,

"I've got the scent, follow the wolves, and they'll take us directly to the pest."

Ichigo looked him in the eye and gave an affirmative nod before the pack jump up in a burst of white flames, reforming into wolves in the air as they seemed to run on invisible ground. Ichigo jumped from the school roof and onto an adjacent building, leaping from roof to roof in pursuit.

Danny turned his head one last time to his sister and Rukia as they held up Ichigo's body before his person disappeared in a blueish white flash as he followed after, using his _Gradu_ to travel from building to building,

Time to hunt.

(~)

"this so isn't fair,"

Ichigo grumbled under his breath as he gave another great leap, gracefully landing as Fenton waited for him, as small smirk on his face. Not even a second after Ichigo landed, the not-so-emo emo-looking kid gave off another quick flash of light and appeared 3 buildings away.

Ichigo gave another silent grumble, not even trying to hide his pissed off face as he gave a flourish of leaps to make it to the same roof. They had been tracking the hollow for a few Minutes now, Following the wolves as they flew over head towards their destination. At first, when he noticed that Danny hadn't followed after, Ichigo was worried that he'd have to wait for Fenton to catch up. But it wasn't even a second after that thought that a quick flash of light and the sound of high pitched static to his immediate right scared the crap out of him as he took a step back. From the light came Fenton, looking like he gave a light step forward onto the top of the roof. He didn't stay long before vanishing again, but not before flashing an annoying smirk at Ichigo. Ichigo wouldn't have minded so much if it wasn't clear that Fenton was clearly intentionally slowing down do Ichigo could keep up, and if there was one thing Ichigo couldn't stand, it was being baby'd.

Before his feet touched the final roof, and before his "guide" could dash away, Ichigo asked in an angered growl

"how the hell are you doing that?"

Fenton, who had turned away to scope out his next destination, turned to him,

"It's a step technique, called _Gradu_ , its basically my version of _Shupo_ ,"

Ichigo gave a a confused tilt of hi head while Fenton looked at him as if he knew what in the hell he was talking about, before giving a small nervous chuckle,

"… right, your new to the whole soul reaper thing, sorry, I kind of forgot about that, what with how much spiritual pre…"

He stopped, rapidly turning back around to where the wolves had started to circle above a wide and well-lit space between two fairly large apartments.

"there, my wolves have it cornered in that alley."

Ichigo tensed as his face set into a focused stare as he gave one last leap into the air, towards their target…

Or at least he would have, if his jerk of a partner didn't grab him by the back of his shirt and pull him back, landing ass first on the roof as the jerk said

"whoa there tiger, you need to know something first,"

Ichigo shot him a glare as he stood up and rubbed his bruised tail-bone, "the hell man?! What's so important,"

Fenten put the hand not holding his sword up in a defensive gesture, a sheepish smile on his face,

"sorry about that, but I need to warn you about this creep's ability first,"

"ability?" Ichigo had finally stopped rubbing his pained spot as he looked at Fenten with a curious expression as the guy turned from Ichigo to look at the alley,

"yea, my wolves were able to track and trap the hollow here, but funny thing is none of them have even gotten a glimpse at the thing, my guess is that it's got some kind of camouflage, it's probably waiting to ambush us."

Ichigo turned back to the alley, trying to look for any sigh of the hollow, which now that he thought about it, should be fairly visible for a giant screaming monster. But even though he couldn't see anything, he was getting all kinds of bad vibes coming from the spot, like he could feel that it wasn't safe.

He turned to Fenton, "so, what do you propose we do?"

Fenton didn't say anything for a second, looking intently at the spot where the hollow was hiding.

"I say we spring the trap, he might be smarter than the bug on the roof, but he isn't that much stronger, probably relies on his ability to hide and ambush, but unfortunately for him…"

Suddenly, his eyes flashed a neon green for barely and instant before returning to blue as a small smile graced his face.

"I have a couple tricks to find things that try to hide."

His person disappeared as he used his movement technique to pop up just in front of the alley, followed by Ichigo who landed to his side as they turned to walk to their target. Ichigo gave a quick look around, but didn't see anything out of place, a few dumpsters where around, the pavement was cracked in a few spots and there were a few graffiti signs in the walls and floor. But as they walked, Ichigo couldn't help but feel a little unnerved, like there was a dagger just out of reach, pointed at his back.

" _Well lokkie here,_ "

A voice echoed around them, giving no clear indication as to where it originated. It sounded slimy and slurred, like a snake trying to talk. Ichigo looked around for any signs of movement, but saw nothing,

" _and here I thought I'd have to bide my time before getting another chance at the fledgling soul reaper… ke, ke, ke, but I see I gave you too much credit when I thought you'd do the smart thing and hide."_

Ichigo narrowed his eyes as he crossed his arms, a defiant look of annoyance on his face, "che, like I'd hide from week pest like you."

This thing was trying to scare them, but was clearly failing as Fenten himself held his sword lazily, looking as bored as can be, Ichigo might be cautious of an enemy he couldn't see, but that didn't mean he was so easily frightened.

Fenton himself gave a little chuckle at Ichigo's jab at the monster, "those are some pretty tall words coming from a bug cornered by my wolves."

As if to accent his points, the circling pack, who had just before landed to watch the alley from the buildings roofs, started to growl in unison. An angry grunt came from the echoing hollow,

" _Don't you dare call me a bug, you pest! I'd have gotten both the fledgling and the weakened soul reaper if it hadn't been for your meddling! I've been stalking those two for days now, just waiting for the right time to strike, and then you went and ruined it!"_

Ichigo reached up to hold the hilt of his blade, itching to shut the hidden creep, while scanning the area. He was looking for anything, a shimmer of light, the smallest bump coming from the dumpsters, but he couldn't see anything. The ghost kid was standing still, his blade pointed down but his hand tensed around the hilt, keeping his focus firmly straight, down the alley.

" _I'd have eaten you and that girl too, if not for that stench, the girl's scent was small enough to stomach, but you? I can barely stand talking to you right now."_

The creature sounded genuinely disgusted, leaving Ichigo pretty stumped, while he never (and _would never_ ) get a good whiff of the Fenton siblings, he was pretty sure they didn't reek. His confused pondering was broken when Fenton gave a small, amused snort,

"can't blame you, from what I've been told, hollows don't really have the stomach for ectoplasm."

" _oh_ " slimy, smug note entered the hollows tone, "s _o it is ectoplasm, I thought it was, but I couldn't tell, your soul's scent is a little weird, like not all of it is here, so I guess your some kind of ghost then?"_

"close, but not really, I am very well experienced with ghosts though."

Fenton turned to face Ichigo, sword slowly rising as a look of confusion passed through Ichigo's face before his eyes narrowed.

"and that means …"

Fenton said, taking a stance with his sword fully raised, the green runes on one edge of the blade starting to glow as black and green flames began to bleed from the metal. Ichigo crouched slightly, slowly beginning to draw his blade when suddenly, before he could even pull a third of his blade out, Fenton flashed out of sight. He reappeared right in front of Ichigo, smug smile on his face with his blade thrust into the air half a foot to the right of Ichigo's head. An unearthly, pained scream and a gout of red blood came from the stabbed air as the creature phased into existence just a few feet behind him.

"… I know just how to deal with hidden bugs."

Ichigo took this moment to leap away from the hollow, unsheathe his sword, and stood a few feet behind Fenton as he pulled his sword from creature's face and gave a small leap back himself. As the beast gave a few more wails of pain, Ichigo got a good look at it, its body was forest green, with a humanoid torso and legs, its signature hole placed smack dab in the middle of its chest. Its hands looked fairly human, excluding an extra thumb on the opposite side of both its palms and the fingers unusual length. The feet were structured much the same way, only longer as the creature stood in a hunched, digitigrade stance. Its mask held a large frontal crest that split its face down the middle and had small, curled horns on the top that curved backwards. Just below its left eye, there was a bleeding gash where Fenton had buried his sword into him. The creature's pained cries soon dissolved into raging breaths,

" _Bastard! I'll kill you for that!"_

Its eyes glowed a deeper red as it lowered its stance, looking poised to strike; Ichigo brought his weapon up as he prepared for the hollows counter attack. But his tension broke when looked over to Fenton, who just stood there calmly as he lazily taped the flat of his blade against his shoulder, no longer gaving off black and green flames.

"Sorry buddy, but you won't be able to do anything to me, or anyone for that matter,"

" _oh,"_ the creature said, a hint of amusement shining through its rage, " _And how can you be so sure of tha-"_

The hollow stopped just as a burst of the same black and green flames shot out of the wound on its face as it arched its spine backwards abd reached both hands to cover the wound and gave another round of pained shrieks.

" _What is this?!"_

It howled between its pained screams, and Fenton responded, sounding unconcerned, but not nearly as amused as he was before,

" _Gloria in inferno_ (Touch of Hades), it's a technique were I mark my opponents with fel flames, letting them burn the target to a crisp."

His tone came off far more neutral now, losing that playful note he had not too long ago. The flames on the beast spread from the wound on its face, slowly engulfing the hollow as it screamed in agony. Fenton flinched at the noise,

"personally, I don't really like this move, I try and avoid killing my opponent when I can, but I make an exception to things that willfully try to eat others. These flames may not be pretty, but their effective at purifying hollows like you."

The creature gave a few more screams as its whole body was engulfed by the flames, its shape thinning as its frame was swallowed by green and black. Ichigo sheathed his sword and stood upright, giving a small sigh as the black and green flames shrank into nothing as the flame wolves above them quickly disappeared.

"looks like where done here," he said, walking up to Fenton as the guy turned around and gave him a small smirk, his good mood apparently returning.

"yea, looks like it,"

The ghost kid positioned his blade off his shoulder and leveled it with his chest, quickly driving right into his heart. This would have startled Ichigo far more if he hadn't see Fenton pulled his sword out before, though it still freaked him out a little. Speaking of freaking him out,

"oh and thanks for the heart attack by the way,"

Ichigo said arms crossed, eyebrow twitching as he leveled a glare at crazy American. Said crazy American gave a small wince,

"sorry about that, but I had to stop him from taking a bite out of you and I didn't have time to shot a heads up."

He kept his glare on Fenton before dropping his head with a sigh, it was hard to stay mad at the guy when he was the one who did all the work. Sure, Ichigo could have taken that oversized iguana down himself, but Fenton moved a step ahead of him. He passed a critical eye at the American for a quick second before speaking,

"we should head back, any longer and will be late for class,"

Fenton blinked before he dug into his pockets and brought out his phone, looking at the time and groaning,

"And here I was hoping not to repeat my crapy attendance record,"

He put his phone back in his pocket at walked past Ichigo, moving in the direction of the school, but was stopped when Ichigo placed his hand on his shoulder, and gave him a firm stare down,

"don't think were done talking, you still have some questions to answer,"

Fenton looked back, his eyes growing cold as his face settled into the same hard stance as it did at the beginning of their talk,

"I might not have Rukia's experience, but even I can see her point, you don't just "get" skills like those,"

They stared in silence for a few seconds, before Fenton dropped his cold look,

"ok, ok, I understand, how about we talk after school?"

Ichigo looked him dead in the eye, looking for any sign of a lie,

"I swear I'll give you your answers, so you don't have to grill me anymore, were on the same team after all,"

Ichigo gave one more glace at the American, but he still saw no hint of a lie, so he gave a small nod and lowered his hand as Fenton walked past. Ichigo turned to him, trying to giving a much calmer expression, albeit still fairly neutral,

"Sorry about that, just trying to be cautious,"

Fenton just gave a small shrug,

"no sweat man, a little caution is necessary to deal with weird crap like this,"

Ichigo gave an amused snort as Fenton turned his head and gave a small smirk, the kid might not be so bad. But before Ichigo could respond, Fenton disappeared in a flash of bright light and hi-pitched static.

Ichigo crossed his arms and grumbled, "show off."

(~)

"please tell me your joking,"

Ichigo groaned as he, Rukia, Jazz and Danny walked down the road, on their way home from school. Dann was finally getting to the question of where he got his training, starting off with Pandora,

"your telling me that not only does a Greek goddess exist, but that she's training you?"

Ichigo's face didn't show so much skepticism as much as aggravation, apparently cursing the fact that this was what he had to live with, something Danny had seen in much kinder expressions with Jazz, whom shot Ichigo a look understanding,

"I know how you feel, but it is the truth, I've met her myself, she's actually very nice, when she doesn't point a spear at you."

Ichigo looked at her with an incredulous eyebrow raised before breathing out a defeated air, Rukia however looked straight at Danny, contemplating his words,

"So this ghost Pandora is your instructor, but how did you come into contact with her?"

Danny turned his head to fully meet her gaze, determined to show his honesty, after all, this all was hard to swallow,

"well, I first met her in her kingdom, my first instructor recommended her to further my training, so I speed through the ghost zone to meet her,"

That brought back memories, he remembered standing in the clock tower, and getting a good thwack on the head, which he was told was for a soon to be asked stupid question. And indeed, soon after clockwork told him who he was going to meet, previously mentioned stupid question popped out of his mouth and caused him to wince as the time master lifted his staff. Danny chuckled at the memory before Ichigo asked,

"first instructor? You have more than one?"

Danny gave a quick nod, "yea, at first, when I got my powers, I was left trying to figure out how they worked, which I had to learn fast given that my parents open portal gave a free pass to all kinds of spirits to do whatever they wanted with the town."

Rukia tipped her head as she held her chin in one hand, "so an open portal really has been open and causing havoc in the world of the living, I had heard reports that there had been some strange readings coming from North America, but as it was apparently in a strictly restricted sector, nothing had been done to investigate it," she turned her head and mumbled "although I have heard squad 12 was petitioning to research the site."

Danny's step faltered for a second before continuing his pace; in hindsight, he should have known the soul society wouldn't be quite forever, but now he knew how close to disaster they had been. He didn't know much about soul society, beyond relevant techniques that Clockwork would parallel with his own, there was little about the squads that circulated the rumor mill. But even then, if even half of the rumors about squad 12 were true, they made the GiW look like saints. Never in the entire time that his family moved had he felt so relieved that they did. Sure, it made seeing his friends more of a hassle then he would have liked, but if he had stayed by the time squad 12 came around … best not to think about it.

"So anyway," he said, trying very hard to change the subject, "my protection of the town eventually got the attention of some of the highest powers in the zone, many of which have a thing against hybrids."

Danny's eyes narrowed for a spit second as an image of Vlad entered his mind as it took a good amount of effort to keep himself from lowering the temperature in the air,

"There was a debate about what they should do with me, most agreed to take me out, until one ghost offered to train me himself, that guy is my first instructor, Clockwork."

Rukia stopped dead as she looked in wide eyed shock, whispering "… that's not …"

Ichigo looked between her and Danny before asking "who's Clockwork?"

Rukia turned to face him before turning to Danny, lingering on his face trying to look for any deception. So Soul society knew about Clockwork? Well that wasn't too surprising, ghosts were notorious gossip hounds, and of all the big shots in the zone, not many were as famous as the time master himself.

Eventually Rukia turned away from the group, her face morphing into startled contemplation,

"I've told Ichigo before, but not a lot is known about the ghost zone, what little we do know are from stray conversations with passing spirits, hearing about a few legends and names"

She paused for a moment, "Among them, one name is spoken with reverence and awe,"

She finally turned to the group, "Clockwork, the time master,"

Ichigo's eyes widened from just a split second, "time master? So he what, controls time?"

"not exactly," Danny interjected, causing both Rukia and Ichigo to turn to him, He hadn't meant to interrupt them, but much like his parents, ha had heard way too much from Clockwork about the nature of his work

"Clockwork doesn't control it as much work with it, monitoring and balancing time, he describes the job more like being a housing inspector than some supreme authority."

Rukia stared at him befuddled, as if Danny had proclaimed as fact that Zeus wore a tutu and practiced ballet, whereas Ichigo just looked plain confused, before look of realization flashed and he spoke up,

"wait a second, I have another question, you said there was a debate between the ghost's highest powers about what to do with you, what about the ghost king, that dark guy?"

Danny gave a few confused blinks before turning to Jazz, who looked just as confused as him before she turned to Ichigo and asked,

"you mean Pariah Dark?"

"yea," Ichigo crossed his arms as both he a Rukia looked intently at Danny and Jazz, "he's still the king right?"

Danny looked between them, did soul society not know about Pariah's first defeat? Well, he guessed that made sense, by Rukia's own admission, the soul reapers didn't know much about the zone. He gave one last glace at his sister, a small sign that he'd tell as much as he was comfortable with, before addressing both of them,

"no he isn't, he was overthrown centuries ago,"

Ichigo and Rukia shared a look, seemingly not surprised about Pariahs downfall before Rukia spoke up,

"so he was deposed, then what about his successor?"

Danny quirked his head in confusion, looking between Rukia and Ichigo as he tried to make sense of the situation. They asked if Pariah was the king, but weren't surprised about his defeat, that probably meant that souls society knew about the zone's revolt, but not what happened after. But asking about his successor? At first he was afraid they meant him, but they were asking about the zones higher powers to begin with, so that couldn't be him. Then he realized, if Soul society knew little about ghosts, then they most likely didn't know about the politics of the zone, their only exposure probably being the giant green haired tyrant that knocked down their front door. Well, if that's the case, he better dispels some misconceptions,

"he never had one, because he never really had a kingdom to pass on,"

If Danny wasn't so focused on keeping his story straight, he might have laughed as both Ichigo an Rukia switched from being absolutely focused to absolutely lost, their faces shifting into looks of complete befuddlement before they both said,

"what?"

Danny gave a deep sigh before continuing,

"I think you guys might have gotten the wrong idea about Pariah, he didn't claim the ghost zone by law, he took it by force. He was never really "the king of all ghosts" no one was, that's just a title he gave himself after conquering most of the zone."

The looked at each other again, no longer looking so lost, but still fairly surprised, Rukia seemingly more so as she asked,

"but if there's no king, then who rules the ghosts?"

Danny turned to her,

"no one, at least, no one leads all of them, we are talking about an entirely different plane of existence, with a large and diverse population. Before Pariah, the Zone was a large number of independent kingdoms, each with vastly different cultures, landscapes, and even lifeforms. They rarely, if ever, came into contact with one another, which made it all the easier for Pariah to swoop in and take them one by one. After Pariah's defeat, they formed legislative parliament out of a reclusive group or scholar's known as the Obervants, to prevent the rise of another tyrant."

Danny looked between the two for their reactions, Ichigo seemed to follow along just fine, looking slightly relieved if not a bit unconcerned. Rukia meanwhile still looked amazed, staring right at him,

"but what about his armies of skeletal monsters? What about his second in command that rode a dark winged horse? What about his crown? According to what little soul society could gather, the Pariah's crown gave him unbelievable power, what happened to something so dangerous,"

She seemed to be having some trouble wrapping her head around Pariah really being gone, which he guessed was fair enough, it be hard to accept that a horror like Pariah just vanished forever.

"his armies were created by his own power, they vanished as soon as he was put down. As for the fright knight, he was eventually sealed away himself, and as for his crown,"

Danny paused, his other form in the zone feeling the Crown pulse around his head, as if aware that its master was talking about it,

"… it was placed somewhere safe."

He could feel Jazz's stare without even needing to look at her, it wasn't or much angry at his lie, or even disappointed in it, more like she was … sorry, about what he couldn't tell. Rukia in the meantime had crossed her arms and stared into the sky,

"Sorry about the outburst, it's just …this is a lot to take in, many in soul society grew up hearing the terrifying legend of Pariah, to think one of soul societies biggest boogiemen was just an upstart this entire time."

A moment of silence passed between the group as they finished their walk in front of the new Fenton works. Danny gave them a little wave,

"well, see you guys tomorrow, and remember, I'm always around if you have any hollow trouble, never hurts have a couple spare hands."

Ichigo gave him a nod in return, "thanks man, good to know we have some support, see yea tomorrow."

Rukia gave a wave back as they went their separate ways, walking up to their homes, but just as Danny was midway to the door, he sensed … something watching him. He quickly turned his head and scanned the houses behind him, narrowing his eyes.

"Danny? What's wrong?"

Danny said nothing for a second, standing there silently for a second before responding, "it's nothing Jazz, don't worry."

He turned around to try and give a comforting smile, but all he was met with was the incredulous stare of his sister,

"yea right, whenever you say 'don't worry' Is when I worry the most."

Danny couldn't help but give a small, amused huff, she had him there. "seriously Jazz, it's nothing, the towns filled with spiritual energy, it probably just tweaked my senses."

She stared at him for a moment before stepping through the door, probably figuring whatever the problem was could wait until after dinner. Danny followed her in, casting a glace over his shoulder as he honed in on the movement in the alley between two houses in front of their own.

He'd have to remember to keep an eye out for that black cat.

(~)

 **Ok, a lot happened in this chapter,**

 **First being the whole building friendship between Danny, Ichigo and Rukia- I decided to structure this I a way to resemble the first season of bleach, where we get some intrigue about a character and said character and Ichigo have to deal with the hollow of the week. I did this as a means fit Danny a bit more naturally into the bleach universe.**

 **Second, all the wolves- I was asked in the first chapter why I used so many images of wolves with Danny, and to be honest, it mainly boils down to "wolves are cool." I mean, I could say that when I think of an animal that best represents Danny, and arctic wolf is the first thing that comes to mind, but honestly, it's because I find wolves cool.**

 **Danny telling Rukia and Ichigo the truth of Pariah- I know this kind of feels like I'm popping a big reveille too early, but trust me, I do have a plan for this. Besides, whether Ichigo or Rukia know this doesn't change too much about the plot.**

 **Finally, something missing, Sam, Tucker and the other DP human characters- don't worry, they'll be here soon.**

 **That's about everything I want to talk about, please post any questions or point out any flaws you see in the reviews, it really does help with my writing.**

 **See you next time.**


	4. Black cats

**Sorry! I know I kind of promised at the end of the previous SAtR chapter that this was coming out soon, but that was roughly the end of my semester, and a lot of crazy has happened since then, But I hope you enjoy this chapter**

 **Once again, I do not own either Bleach or Danny Phantom,**

 **(~)**

Chapter 4: Black Cats Are Unlucky for a Reason

"so," Tucker said, slurping his Nasty shake while lazily tapping at his gamepad, splitting his attention between the game and the conversation,

"you guys are cool then?"

Danny gave an echoing sigh as he sat in the chair next to his friend, equally giving a halfhearted effort at the game,

" _as cool as I think we'll get yea,"_

It had been a couple days since his talk with Ichigo and Rukia, and so far, their relationship could probably be summed up as 'acknowledgment'. They knew that each other had powers, but were not hostile, but that was about as close as their comradery went, which to be fair was a whole lot better than the rest of the school. Apparently the thugs he knocked down were well known in the school, or at least, were loud enough for people to know about them, and taking them down single-handedly apparently had him garner a reputation. Now most of the school avoided him, all except one or two girls who seemed to follow him around building, but for what reason he couldn't tell. The only other people that would talk to him were a couple Ichigo's friends, although for different reasons.

Keigo was his most frequent company, followed closely by Mizuiro, both (despite the latter's ability to hide it) trying to learn more about his sister, who also apparently gained a reputation for her mind, and her looks. Then there were those two girls, Orihime and Tatsuki, the former who had apparently seen his fight with the thugs, and wanted to know where he got his skills. A quick excuse of martial arts training from his mother satisfy her curiosity, for now, he did notice her keeping a close eye on his movements. The other, Orihime, seemed to welcome him with open arms, animatedly and politely talking with him whenever they met, but Danny could feel her nerves fray just a touch when he got close, same for Tatsuki. It made sense, while they might not be aware of it, Danny could sense that they had both developed a fairly high spiritual pressure, even if Orihime's seemed a few steps above her friend. As for the other two, Chad and Chizuru, Chad seemed friendly enough, but kept his distance, which given his own developing abilities made sense.

As for Chizuru, Danny only had to see her once to know he didn't want anything to do with her, if only to stop any potential contact she might have with Jazz.

And so the next few days passed without any real incident, his parents finished up the lab and he sensed Ichigo taking down a few hollows, but nothing really worth mentioning … except …

Danny buried another sigh by taking a sip of the soda next to him before he turned his attention back to the game. He was sitting in a giant recliner and playing video games with his friends in Sam's basement while her parents where away on business. Sam had gotten up to refill her drink at the snack bar to the side of the room, she was wearing a black, long sleeved t-shirt with a large purple spider in the middle, and a knee long black skirt with purple leggings. On her feet she wore her usual combat boots, an around her wrist was a black band with a bright icy crystal set atop, made by Danny as a birthday gift. She had begun growing out her hair, having it loose and down, keeping some it to cover one of her eyes which she had put on a light amount of her gothic make-up. Her ears were pierced, each holding the image of a purple rose wrapped in black vines, which served a perfect disguise for their true function.

One very important law in the ghost zone was the law of conquest, when a ghost becomes sufficiently powerful, their power manifests as what was known as an authority. For example, a ghost with the elemental power of fire would gain an authority of fire, so long as they became powerful enough. Ghosts of this level were known as elder ghosts, beings that embodied the concept that created them to such a degree to have a rule and claim over it. The interesting thing was, if someone, anyone, be it ghost, human, soul reaper, whatever, were to slay an elder ghost, that person would gain that authority. SO if someone were to kill that ghost of fire, said person would gain their authority over fire. In Danny's time as Amity's protector, he had meet many ghosts, most of whom he could just catch at send back into the zone, but on occasion, there were ghosts dangerous enough that he had no choice but to kill, and three of those just so happened to be elder ghosts. One of them was Undergrowth, after killing him and saving the town, Danny received the authority over plant life, to do with as he saw fit. So he decided to give it to Sam because, one, he had no real use for it, two, by giving Sam the power that originally controlled her, it prevented her from being manipulated twice, and thee, he knew she'd love it. The earrings acted as a channeling device, allowing her to control what would normally be a power for ghosts. He had originally planned to make a ring for her, a sort of green lantern kind of thing, but one engagement joke out of Tucker changed his mind, and got Tucker a nice lump on the head.

Sitting in the chair next to Danny was Tucker, wearing a yellow, open zip up hoodie and a "the cake is a lie" black meme shirt underneath. He wore tan cargo pants and tan leather, lace less boots. He still had his red beret and half-circle black rim glasses as the sounds of clattering plastic and electronics sounded from his pockets as he moved. Tucker had never really developed any spiritual powers, instead, he did what he did best, and became an expert on Fenton tech, making and improving his parents work as he, unlike his parents, did know about the relationship between ectoplasm and reshi.

Standing next to Danny's chair was Valarie, wearing a red collared shirt, with the top buttons undone, revealing a white shirt underneath. She wore thin jeans the reached just below her knees, with short white socks and blue jean canvas shoes. Her Hair was still the same, long and curly, with a red headband a top her head and small red, triangle earrings. Around her wrist was a black metal band with a red input screen on top, used to call her power suit whenever she needed. After fight with Pariah, Tucker took it upon himself to debug and re-program the suit for her, seeing how Vlad's work so closely resembled his parents, making the suit truly hers and hers alone, a point she made very firm when she started fighting with the team. At first, she had been worried that Vlad would attempt retribution, seeing as Axion labs was still owned by Vlad, but so far, he hadn't even acknowledged her betrayal, And Danny had no idea why. Mabey he didn't see Valerie as much of a potential asset or threat, so her departure was not that great a loss, Mabey he had planned for this and has some greater scheme in mind, who knows? But for now, as far as Valerie was concerned, Vlad let her do as she wished.

She was currently eyeing Danny, his silenced sigh apparently pickup in his body language,

"So what's the problem?"

He paused the game, turning to look at his friends as Sam came up next to Valerie,

" _first on the list would probably be the cat that is so obviously not a cat that's been spying on me,"_

He gave an annoyed huff, that cat had been spying on him all week, watching him for a half-hour at most one or two times a day. Despite being able to catch the scent of the cat's spiritual pressure with his wolves, Danny couldn't tell what exactly it was, which either meant that it was either too weak to catch wind of (which he seriously doubted, if it was that weak it would be nowhere near smart enough to spy on him at such regular intervolves.) or it was skilled enough to suppress its abilities. Whatever it was, it hadn't done anything yet, so best let sleeping dogs … well, cats lie … for now.

Valerie crossed her arms "you sure it's not just Amorpho screwing with you again?"

Danny shook his head " _Nope, whatever this thing is, it's not a ghost, if it were, it couldn't possibly hide its scent form my wolves, besides, Dani told me she ran into Amorpho heckling some people in Argon last time she visited Dora's"_

She told him this herself last time she came to the keep. His "cousin" always being the free spirit, used Danny's keep as a rest stop for a few days when she needed to take a breath on her travels before taking off to wherever she wanted. Her travels reached even further when Danny taught her how to open her own portals in and out of the zone, a trick he learned when he got his friend Wulf out of Walker's stockades.

Sam took a quick sip of her refilled drink before speaking,

"then what's number two of your weekly paranoia problems?"

He shot her a look that to others would look fairly menacing, with the inhuman eyes and naturally scowling physical features of his ghost form, but to Sam it was just an annoyed pout, which caused her to smirk.

He let up with a small defeated sigh as he brought an armored gloved hand to one side of his face,

" _Number two would be the class Quincy who has clear issues with soul reapers,"_

Rukia probably didn't pick up on it with her diminished powers, and Ichigo certainly didn't have the skill to detect it, but Danny could feel waves of anger poring off of Ishida. He kept his powers subdued, but Danny saw just a few times when both Rukia and Ichigo had their backs turned, Ishida would send an angry glare from the corner of his eyes.

Tucker gave a loud swallow, hiving used this pause as an excuse to stuff his face, "I get why he doesn't like soul reapers, but what about you? You're not a soul reaper, but your like, kind of like one right?"

" _Technically, but even if he would have a problem, my duplicate is to low powered for him to pick up on the similarities at a distance, I probably look like a spiritually aware kid to him."_

Valerie ask "so what, you think this guy's going to do something dangerous?"

Danny turned his head forward as he brought his hand to his chin, " _More like something stupid, he may be the smartest kid in class, but pride can make even the most intelligent people do stupid stuff."_

He brought his hand from his chin and rubbed his temple, he had hopped Ishida had either enough rationality to at least talk to Ichigo and Rukia, or at the very least enough self-control not to try anything. But Ishida's actions in the last couple of days seemed to dash those hopes, Danny could sense him going out every night and hunt down hollows, specifically the ones Ichigo and Rukia went after, each kill getting more and more ferocious. It was troubling, but Danny hadn't done anything about it because for one thing, Ishida seemed to have learned from his ancestor's mistakes and intentionally purified the hollows instead of flat out destroying them. The other reason being that while he was concerned, there really wasn't much he could do about it at the moment, it wasn't like he had the power to tell Ishida to stop being angry.

So, for now, he'd just have to do what he always did, and wait for things to blow up in their collective faces, a tactic he hated for the stress it caused him, and the sheer frequency he used it.

"START!"

His mopping was interrupted by the sound of the game being unpaused as Tucker made mad rapid button presses on his gamepad, apparently he used Danny's distraction to reach over and unpause the game.

Danny quickly grabbed his own control, trying desperately to make up for his opening,

" _DUDE!"_

"sorry man, but I'm playing to win, I've already lost to Sam too much tonight!"

" _Me too, but you don't see me cheating!"_

The girls laughed as the boys got wrapped up in their game

(~)

A loud Sigh broke the quite of the night as Danny shook his head,

"I wish I could say I'm disappointed in him, if a.) I actually knew him and b.) if I couldn't see this coming a mile away."

It had been a few hours since his ghost form returned to the keep, and it was getting fairly late in Karakura, not that the time of night bothered him, besides, he had other things to worry about. He could feel Ishida begin to hone in on Ichigo and Rukia with each stolen hunt, getting closer each time. Danny knew it would be only a matter of time before there was a confrontation, and judging by how agitated Ishida's power felt tonight, it wouldn't be long. So, he decided to follow them tonight, keeping to a safe distance and in the shadows, staying hidden while focusing his powers to enhance his senses to see and hear what was going on.

Sure enough, Ishida came and all but declared war on Ichigo, before eliminating the hollow and walking away. He soon approached Danny's location, being well out of sight and ear shot of both the reapers, walking down the street in front of a small ally where Danny hid. Ishida passed the ally, but stopped a few feet past the entrance,

"I don't know who you are, but you better show yourself, before a shot you down."

Danny stood and gave a silent scoff; a bluff, Ishida might have picked up on his trail, but he had no Idea where Danny was, because that was what Danny wanted. He leaked just enough pressure into the air for Ishida to pick up on, but not pinpoint, because he had a few things to say to the Quincy.

Danny put his hand in his pockets, schooled his features into a neutral frown, and stepped out of the shadows and into the light of a nearby streetlight. Ishida fully turned to him, his arms at his sides and keeping a defensive stance. He gave a quick glance to Danny's profile,

"you're the American transfer student, Daniel Fenton."

Ishida didn't seem too surprised, only quirking an eyebrow as Danny gave a small twitch at his full first name,

"please, it's just Danny, I'm surprised you know me."

Ishida brought his hand up to readjust his glasses, the light of the moon reflected off his glasses and hid his eyes,

"of course I do, your nationality aside, you scored an impressive 29th in our year, although that pales in comparison to your sister, who dashed all of our previous school records."

Danny's cool domineer cracked as he gave a silent groan for a split second, thinking back to Keigo's outcry of him being a nerd and being embarrassed by associating with him. That alone would be tolerable if not his and Mizuiro's wild reaction to finding his sister's top score, which prompted them to fantasize a study session with her. Of course that stopped when a cold wind flew through the hallway and Danny gave a stern glare.

As quick as the drop in his mood came, a small smirk graced his mouth,

"Thanks, but I really owe my score to Jazz, she's an excellent teacher,"

His smirk dropped as he gave a neutral frown,

"but we both know my test scores aren't where you know me from."

Ishida's hand dropped from his glasses as he returned a cold look of his own,

"very astute, you seem to have some skill, unlike our orange haired substitute. I can see why you could deal with those two hollows your first day."

He looked at Danny intensely, looking for any sign of surprise, but Danny hadn't even flinched, He figured Ishida had picked up on his fights, Danny could tell by his spiritual pressure that Ishida had some level of training.

"the question is how, I did some digging after that day, your parents do some truly fascinating work with ghosts, I assume it was their research that brought about you and your sister's awareness?"

Danny closed his eyes as he gave an amused snort,

"Something like that yea, although they never developed any awareness themselves, they wear protective gear 24/7"

Danny opened his eyes, Ishida hadn't moved an inch, still standing ready for any provocation.

"I figured as much, there isn't a picture of them without their suits. My question still stands; a greater spiritual awareness could help you deal with hollows, but it wouldn't give you your skills in sensing spiritual pressure,"

Ishida's cold look dropped into a stern glare,

"so where did you learn that?"

Ishida's glare was impressive, but had little effect on Danny, he'd seen nightmarish beasts from the ghost zone give pleasant smiles more threatening than Ishida's look, although both could hardly compare to an angry Sam or Valerie.

"I could ask you the same question, it can't be easy to find a teacher for a Quincy in this day and age."

Ishida's eyes widened for a spilt second before his face fell into another glare, albeit one far angrier.

"How do you know about Quincy's?"

Danny looked him right in the eye, his face as neutral as he could muster,

"you have your resources, I have mine."

They stayed silent for a while, Danny staying as stoic as possible while Ishida's glare lessoned in anger, but not in intensity.

"… I assume you saw everything, so … are you here to stop my fight with the soul reapers?"

"… no, Ichigo's a big boy, he can deal with his own fights. It's not my problem, nor my place to step in for him."

Ishida's eyebrow quirked as his glare gained an inquisitive quality,

"then why are you here?"

Danny's neutral expression morphed into an intense gaze, not so much hostile, but firm.

"to warn you, your fight with Ichigo might not be my problem for now, but if you do something dangerous that could harm innocent people, then it WILL be my problem."

He paused for a second to let his words sink in,

"I don't intend to interfere, but if you do something that could endanger anyone, living or dead, then I will step in."

Silence passed again before Ishida's stance loosened, he still stood ready, but only to defend against any possible attack.

"Understood, rest assured, I have no intention of harming anyone else besides the soul reapers."

Danny gave him one last glance before walking past Ishida in the direction of his house.

"Then I'll see you later."

He made it a few feet away before Ishida yelled out, not even turning around to look at him.

"wait! You still haven't answered my question, what are you?"

Danny stopped walking, not even turning around as he gave his response,

"complicated."

He began to walk again, and after a few seconds he heard Ishida's steps behind him as they both went their separate ways.

(~)

It was such a good day, the sun was shining, the kids were playing in the parks, it was the kind of afternoon that was perfect for someone to forget their troubles. And it was exactly because it was such a peaceful afternoon that Jazz was so annoyed with her paranoid little brother.

She and Danny where on their way home from school, and her brother was visibly tense, his shoulder stiff, walking in line with her, shifting his gaze around him, like he expected a threat to pop out of thin air at any moment. What was worse was his attitude, he hadn't really spoken to anyone besides her, but anyone that pasted got a fierce look from Danny, which usually made them move by as fast as possible.

Jazz gave a small pout at her brother's behavior, when their parents told her that they'd be moving to Japan, she had reasoned that the move would be good for Danny. Amity might have been their home town for years, but it was also the prime location for most of Danny's battles, the city might be far safer now, but it still held far more associative negatives for Danny than was strictly healthy. Moving did limit his interaction with Danny's friends, who were a major support for him, but with his abilities, the move wouldn't hardly harm Danny's connection to them.

But now here he was, halfway across the earth and he was still walking on eggshells; in hindsight, Jazz realized it was obvious that what Danny needed wasn't a change in environment, but mentality. For three years, Danny had grown accustomed to being on the receiving end of whatever crisis came up, be it Vlad's schemes, ghost zone politics, and vicious hollows, Danny was too use to staying on guard. It wasn't healthy, even he had known it wasn't healthy, but old habits were hard to kick, not without help, and who better than her to beat some sense in her brother.

It was when Danny gave a rather scalding glare to scare off a well-dressed man that seemed to share Vlad's taste in dress that Jazz finally put her foot down, stopping dead in her tracks and folding her arms, giving him a firm look. When Danny noticed she had stopped, he turned around to look at her and winced before giving a loud sigh,

"don't say it Jazz I know,"

She raised an eyebrow, "oh do you? Then why do you look ready to bite someone's head off?"

Danny gave a nervous chuckle before turning his head to the right, they had stopped on top of a traffic overpass, and Danny looked out onto the sprawling town.

"Look its …"

"it is because he can feel it."

Danny made a swift leap to stand Just in front of her, giving a small crouch, Jazz turned her head just enough to see a fierce stare on his face, probably to the source of that strange voice. It was smooth, sounding like a deep male pitch, but she couldn't tell where it came from, the only thing across from them was a black cat. Jazz looked at her brother's face again and followed his eyes to try and find the owner of the voice, but his gaze was firmly on the cat. Confused, she was about to ask Danny what he was doing when she got quite the shock as the cat opened its mouth and spoke as it walked towards them.

"like an animal before an earthquake, you can feel the tremors building, can't your boy?"

The cat stopped a few meters away and sat in front of them,

"you can hear them clawing at the boarder can't you? Ready to burst free and unleash terror on this town, they are waiting."

Danny tensed as his right hand clenched into a fist,

"for what?"

The Cat looked them both straight in the eye, "for a very smart, and very proud boy to do something very foolish."

Danny gave a quick gasp, his body gave a quick twitch, and Jazz make a quick peak to his face, but there was no visible blue vapor coming from his mouth, so it wasn't his ghost sense.

"he wouldn't …"

Before Danny could elaborate, a small sound of something snapping came to ear as things seemed to go eerily quiet for a few seconds. Then the silence was broken, by the unmistakable sound of a hollow's roar. Jazz tensed, shifting to stand a little more behind Danny, she was no coward, and she wasn't just going to be a burden on her brother, but hollows were relentless, it was better to be safe than over-confident. Besides, she had learned that Danny would worry regardless of wither or not she could handle the situation, so she did this more as a sign of support than anything else.

But her confidence in what support she could give weaned as more and more Hollow's roared in the distance, and she could feel goosebumps crawl up her skin as even she could feel the building swarm. Then a ripping noise, like tearing fabric sounded out and She and Danny turned to the sky as a twisting black scare started to form.

"Damn! That idiot!"

Danny gave a silent curse as he closed his eyes a gave a calming breath, probably giving a search of the area. A few seconds passed, and Jazz tried to stay patient, but the random screams of hollows frayed her nerves,

"so, how bad is it?"

Danny stayed silent for a few seconds before responding, "depends, Ichigo is out and about taking down the small fry he comes across, looks like he's heading to his sister's school, but Yuzu's already home and Karin seems to being playing with her friends."

He turned his head in where Jazz could only assume was the young kurosaki's location,

"Nothing's heading her way yet, but somethings defiantly heading for Chad, Orihime too."

Danny tensed, Jazz remembered those names, she sometimes saw them with Danny when she went to walk with him at the gate of the school. She had seen others from the classroom as well, but the two of them being the most prominent in her mind, as Chad was hard to miss and Orihime had a hair color to rival her own.

"You needn't worry about those two, an associate of mine has been keeping an eye on them ever since their awareness began to grow, and a trial like this will be more than enough for them to tap into their potential."

The talking cat, ironically enough, brought Danny back to reality as he gave a guarded turn to their furry guest.

"and why should we trust what you say?"

The cat gave a small chuckle, "I guess it would be hard to just suddenly trust a talking cat."

Jazz could see enough of the side of her brothers face to tell he had raised an eyebrow, mostly likely incredulously,

"especially one that's been stalking me be for the past couple of days."

The cat gave an amused, but polite snort "in deed, but rest assured, I have no intentions of making an enemy of you, _lord phantom_ "

Jazz's eyes shot wide as she gave a step closer to her brother, but Danny hardly moved, keeping his face firm, trying to show no outwards signs of shock. But Jazz knew her brother, she could tell by the look in his eyes that he was internally panicking, at least at first before doing everything in his power to keep from showing it.

"hmm, you don't seem all too surprised that I know that name."

Jazz had to force herself not to narrow her eyes at the cat, it was by a tone more amused to actually be honest, and Jazz hoped she was wrong and this cat couldn't see through her brother's act.

"not really, ghosts are the worst gossipers, worst then high school girls, if you can believe it."

Danny's voice hadn't faltered at all, keeping the same tone as before, and he seemed to keep his cool if he can fall back on his usual defense mechanism, "witty" quips.

The cat gave a few chuckles, "oh I could believe that, that kind spirit who I talked to seem quite … chatty, going on and on about how he'd rule us all with his, and I quote, 'cardboard containers of doom.'"

The resound clap of two slaps and groans accompanied that comment, as both Jazz and her brother had a hand on their forehead. While the barrier kept most ghost from entering the world now, some of the craftier or lucky found ways to slip through, that is unless you're the box ghost, who instead of being either, seemed to have the power to slip between the realms. A fact that Danny and Jazz found soon after Danny put up the barrier, and the box ghost figured out he was one of the very few who could get out, which is when he started to "invade" the "helpless" city of Amity. Of course at that point, everyone had gotten use to his antics, and barring that one incident with Pandora's box, knew he wasn't a threat, so they just generally ignored him. Even the ghost hunters, from the GiW to their own parents lost interest in caching him, seeing it as a waste of time and effort. Danny would still, on occasion throw him back into the ghost zone, but he really only did that to stave off boredom. Of course now he might just try and keep him in the zone, if he was passing on important info to strange talking cats,

Danny gave a load sigh and a small whisper, "mental note, kick box ghost's ass next time I see him."

"language Danny," she reprimanded, but it was hardly heartfelt as she ended with a sigh of her own. Another hollow roar in the distance brought them back to the situation at hand, as both she and Danny turned their heads of the side of the overpass to the distance.

"so…" The cat said, drawing both Danny and her attention, "What are you going to do? Will you go out and help your friends?"

Danny was silent for a moment, still standing still in his defensive crouch as he eyed the cat. Soon enough however, he rose from his crouch and closed his eyes, tilting his head ever so slightly over his shoulder before turning back to the cat and opening his eyes.

"No, you're right, I'm not needed with Chad and Orihime, and while I'd like to give Ishida a piece of my mind right now, he and Ichigo have thing handled for now, besides…"

Danny gave another look over his shoulder, "… I think something's trying to sneak in."

"So you feel it too, it's probably trying to hide its spiritual pressure and use the others as a distraction."

Danny turned back to the cat and gave a quick nod, "yea, and this isn't some typical small fry, probably an Adjuchas."

Jazz gave a silent nervous gulp, Danny had talked about the Menos before, clockwork would send him out to take out a few of the weaker ones that would accidentally slip through to the zone. Apparently they ranked among the strongest of the hollows, and given that the normal hollows were giant, tough skinned monsters, that was a scary thought.

The cat addressed them, "yes, I figured as much, I was planning or going out and taking it out, but if you want, I could escort your sister back home while you deal with it."

Danny started to ben his knees slightly, looking like he was about to drop into his defensive stance again "and I suppose you could, seeing as you know EXACTLY where we live."

His tone was neutral but firm, the accusation plain as day, yet Jazz could see his head tilt slightly back over his shoulder again. She could see the conflict in her brother, he wanted to go and deal with that hollow, probably get answers as to what it was planning, but he didn't want to leave her alone with this cat. She bit her lip, she wasn't exactly ready to trust this cat, but there was no way she'd let herself hold her brother back, guess it was time for a leap of faith. With a sigh she moved up and put a hand on her brother's shoulder,

"Danny, just go and deal with this hollow, I'll head home and put up the ghost shield for protection k?"

Danny turned to her then back to the cat, he stayed in his tense position until finally relenting and giving her a worried glance as she dropped her hand,

"are you sure?"

Giving a quick glance at the cat herself, Jazz gave him a nod "yes, I'm sure, just try to be careful, ok?"

Danny gave her a long look before giving a loud sigh, "ok, you stay safe to."

She gave a nod as he gave one last glance at the cat, "if you hurt one hair on her head …"

The cat's chuckle interrupted him "quite the doting brother, I pity your future daughter's love interests."

'say that to Youngblood,' Jazz gave a roll of her eyes as she thought of the last time Danny caught the child ghost talking with Danielle.

"rest assured, I'll have her safe in home before you know it."

Danny gave a hard look as he stared at the cat for a second, "after this, I'd like a word with this 'associate' of yours after this is all done."

"not a problem, I'm sure he'd be delighted to talk."

Danny kept his stare for another few seconds before turning to Jazz and disappearing in a white light and the sound of static.

"well then, come along and let's get you home, I'd hate to have Pariah's Bane after my tail."

Jazz Jogged up and followed the cat, noting that its tone sounded more amused than worried about Danny's potential anger.

As they walked, Jazz spoke up "I'm sorry to ask so late, but I don't think we ever got your name."

The cat turned its head ever so slightly and, Jazz could be wrong but seemed to be giving her a smirk, "I suppose I should tell you, call me Yoruichi."

(~)

Channeling power from his other self in the ghost zone and using Gradu, Danny rushed through the forest on the outskirts of Karakura. It had been some time since Danny channeled this much power in his human form, but given that his opponent was a Menos, he couldn't afford to be discreet. Flashing from branch to branch of the tree tops, Danny made one parting glance to make a quick scan for his sister spiritual pressure, he was far from comfortable about leaving Jazz like that, but he couldn't just let this thing slip into town.

The Adjuches weren't just leagues more powerful than the normal grunts, they were far more intelligent, left alone, this guy could do some serious damage, even if this thing was working alone, which given the current invasion, Danny seriously doubted. An invasion happening so soon after Ichigo unlocks his powers and right as a Quincy makes his move against him? Not likely a coincidence, after years of dealing with Vlad's schemes and training with the master of time, Danny and thrown out hope that anything was just mere coincidence.

This whole thing made his "manipulative ass plotting things behind the scenes" sense scream.

Soon, Danny jumped from the branches and into a small clearing, a small dirt road moving past an opening in the tree line as an old wooden bench sat across an even older looking shrine along the path. Walking along the road for a second until coming to a stop just past the bench Danny stood and waited.

After a second he spoke up, "well, you going to come out, or am I goanna have to pull you out?"

A small breeze seemed to be his only response before a high-pitched, genderless and inhuman laugh came from the wind, giving no clear direction to its source.

"Hehehehehe, eager to die are we?"

Suddenly a dark hole opened in the air before Danny, as the hollow stepped forward to the unflinching boy. The creature was taller than the tree line and had a humanoid, torso, arms and legs, but were pencil thin despite having a defined musculature, and gray skin with its hole at the navel. Instead of feet, the hollows legs came to a thin sharp point that seemed not to impede its balance. It had mostly normal, albeit large hands, with the fingers ending in long pointed claws. Its neck was long and skinny, coming up a few feet to its head. Its mask curved out and down its face, creating a crest moonlike shape out of most of its face, save the top that instead of curling down, angled to a long sharp point several feet above its relatively small head.

It walked forward, claws out but poster straight with its head cocked to the side, the mask giving the creature a creep, tooth filled grin.

"greetings, snack, my names Punto, I have no idea how you were able to find me, but it doesn't matter."

the hollow brought its right hand to its mouth and licked its bladed fingers,

"I have orders to remain unknown to the soul reapers, so it looks like I'll _have_ to dice you up and eat you, no hard feelings, hehehe."

The hollow's form blurred as it shot at incredible speeds towards Danny, as his eyes hardened and he used _Gradu_ to dodge as the creature swung down its bladed hands to form five long gouges in the ground from where Danny was standing. Danny stood guarded a few meters away as Punto turned its head to face him, the red orbs of its eyes widening into full circles,

"you, that technique was similar to a soul reaper's flash step, but different, and that sickening smell of your energy, its smells like … your clearly no ordinary human, but what are you?"

Its red eyes narrowed into an inquisitive glare, turning fully to him and raising its hands in an obviously threating manner. Danny, however, merely smirked,

"If I had a nickel every time I heard that question, for guys like you, just call me pest control."

Punto's expression changed as eyes took on an annoyed look,

"hm, no matter, I still have my mission, and you're in the way, meaning you won't be around long enough to matter. Though now that I've gotten a better smell of your power, I think I'll pass on gobbling you up."

Danny lifted one incredulous eyebrow and deadpanned, "why thank you good sir for that mercy,"

Before his smirk returned, "but care to share more about that mission of yours, like for starters, who sent you?"

He leveled a fist to Punto, "I'd like to get the scope from the horse's mouth before I beat it out of him first."

The eyes of the hollow curved to accent the sickening grin of its mask, "why should I tell you? after all…"

Punto's image burled again and came behind Danny, its arm raised,

"YOUR GOING TO DIE ANYWAY!"

As fast as possible, the hollow swept down with his arm, intent on cutting through his opponent. But before they could touch him, Danny spun around, pulled out his blade from his chest, held the hilt in both hands with his knees bent, and braced for the blow. Blade and claw met with a loud clang of metal, as the force of the blow created a shockwave that left a fair sized crater were Danny stood, though Danny himself was not harmed.

"what!?"

The monsters red eyes shot wide again as he shouted in surprise, giving Danny a chance to push back its hand a make a slash towards its mask, unfortunately, the hollow regained its senses in time and quickly leapt back before Danny could even touch him. As Punto landed, his surprise melted into rage as a soft growl emanated from the mask's mouth.

"You! where did that blade come from?! What the hell are you?!"

Lifting his blade with both hands forward and taking a crouched stance, Danny replied with a smirk,

"Already told you, pest control."

Punto gave an angered snarl, "you're the only pest here brat! I don't know what you are, but I'm not letting you stop me from my mission!"

The hollow lunged again as Danny flashed out of the way, taking a swipe at the hollow, who in turn also moved to dodge. For several minutes they traded blows, blocking and striking at the other when they could, but neither could land a hit. They seemed evenly matched at first, but as time went on, Danny started to slow down, sweat accumulating on his brow as his breath came out into shorter rasps.

After a few minutes of the clash, Danny had managed to push his attacker back several meters. The hollows eyes regained his manic amusement as looked at Danny's condition, he was getting short of breath, and his decreasing speed had cost him a few scratches, nothing he couldn't recover with a little concentration, but it made it clear he who had the advantage here.

" _Guess this is as far as I can go in human form, at least without drawing out more from my other self."_

He needed to end this, from what he could feel, another Menos was poised to punch through the rip Uryu had formed, but as it stood now, he didn't have enough power like this to finish off his opponent easily.

Standing from his crouched stand, Danny gave a loud sigh,

 _Didn't want to use this if I could, but I don't have a lot of options outside of going ghost._

Danny lifted his sword horizontally in one hand and faced the flat of the blade forward. The hollow lifted on eyelid in curiosity, "now what are you doing?"

Danny didn't respond as he brought his other hand and placed his open palm on the forward face of the sword, close to the hilt. His voice coming out into a soft echo

" _dentes tui testimonium, rex rapaces_." – (bear your fangs, king of wolves)

The blade gave a flash of green light before giving a blast of smoke covered Danny's form as a new wave of spiritual pressure beared down on the hollow, surprising Punto, but not over powering him.

Soon, the smoke around Danny cleared as he came into view, however, no longer holding the same blade.

In fact, there was not actual blade to see,

In Danny's hand looked like the hilt of a thin, double bladed sword, make of black metal and covered in neat black leather strips and accented in white strips. It was roughly a foot and a half long with cut in the leather mid-way where a double sword might disconnect into two separate blades. The hilts two ends, however, had no blades, but two identical black metal wolf heads pieces coming out around 2 and a half inches out.

Punto began to give a crazed giggle,

"heheheh! And here I was starting to get a little worried! Granted I didn't expect that weird blade of yours to have a release form, but if that's the result, you were better off keeping it sealed!"

The hollow lowered into a low crouch with his hands out, poised to strike at what he thought was a defenseless opponent, but instead of panicking, Danny smirked and twisted the hilt apart into two separate hilts.

"you think so huh? Well, let's see about that."

Punto leapt forward, his speed quicker than what a normal human could see, but Danny stood still, his head tilted slightly so only his smirk was visible to the hollow. Just as Punto made a sharp horizontal slash, Danny vanished from his sight.

Wide eyed, Punto skid to a halt as he franticly looked around, losing all sight of Danny, desperately trying to figure out where his opponent had gone.

 _Dam! he's faster than I thought, useless or not, that was a sword release, but it doesn't matter how fast he is, he can't hurt me with those sticks of his._

"looking for me?"

Punto spun around and found Danny standing with his back facing the hollow, his arms were held outward as he griped the two hilts, which held a significant change. The mouths of both the ornate Wolf heads had opened, and from their maws burst two long, thin, streams of energy, with the right being green and the left white, the two glowing and giving a low hum of power.

"T-those blades?! HOW?! I …"

Punto's words came short as a sudden cough of blood surprised him, but Danny didn't move, showing no surprise

"I'd tell you, but I think you had the right idea back there…"

As if on cue, a burst of blood came from a thing cross mark across Punto's chest, coming down his shoulders and to the flanks of his abdomen, before his chest separated into 4 evenly cut parts. Danny lowered his blades before he turned around and watch as Punto started to evaporate, his face neutral.

"why tell a dead man?"

As the last of his opponent evaporated, Danny gave a sigh before cutting the power from his blade, reconnecting the two hilts and re-sealing his sword before he plunged it back into his chest.

He stood there for a few moments, he had already pooled a little focus into quickly healing his scratches as he was looking at where his opponent use to stand,

"I'd wager you're the 'associate' the cat mentioned?"

Danny didn't turn as he heard a fan open and an almost lifeless toned voice sounded off behind him,

"I suppose I am, guess Yoruichi didn't get around to giving you an introduction."

Danny turned around, leveling the man with an incredulous look,

"we kinda had more important things to deal with,"

Danny turned his head in the direction of Karakura, he could feel The Menos crawling its way through the rift.

"still kinda have more important things left in fact."

The man's grin grew as he fanned himself, cane in hand,

"then I'll be quick, my names Uruhara Kisuke, nice to meet you, Danny Phantom."

(~)

 **So we finally have the rest of the DP group in the story, I do plan on making them bigger parts in the story, just not now.**

 **For the who authorities thing, I not going to say anything about it, just know that there's more to it than just a quick explanation as to how Sam gets plant powers. And as to Tucker not getting any powers, that doesn't mean I dee him as useless. To me, Tucker has always had his strength in his own accomplishments, that he was a self-made character that could deal with challenges his own way rather than with some strange destiny thrust upon him. For me, I've seen that the crux of Danny's struggles was always how to cope with himself as Tuckers was how he could couple with the situation.**

 **Thx again for your support, again, I would love any feedback you could give in how I could improve the story, I hope to get the next chapter out a lot quicker, so see then.**


	5. UPDATE

**Ok, time for the one thing we all hate, update chapters, sorry but first off I want to assure people**

 **I HAVEN' T ABANDONED MY STORIES**

 **I am sorry I haven't updated in months, but I've been really busy with school, grabbing and extra semester for my more advanced classes for my major, I'm also getting more involved with a research project.**

 **I am sorry, I haven't updated in a while but my schooling kind of is my priority right now.**

 **But again, I HAVEN' T GIVEN UP ON THESE STORIES**

 **But unfortunately I can't quite give them my attention yet,**

 **My collage works of a little bit of a weird semester track system, so my current semester doesn't end until July. But once I'm off, I've got two months off and I plan to dig into these chapters then.**

 **I'm sorry for my lack of updates, its it's a stressful time right now.**

 **So while it might take some time, just know this story will be continued.**

 **Thank you for your patience.**


End file.
